Posted: Thursday, January 12, 2017 12:00 pm
The safety of the village of Ashuelot is the responsibility of the Winchester Zoning Board of Appeals.
Winchester’s ZBA is
currently considering whether to allow changes to the zoning laws
because of a variance and special exception request by a Massachusetts
company, Ridgeline, also known as OSOK (One Shot One Kill), which is
requesting to put a military-style, long-range, high-powered gun range
in a residential zone.
Ask yourself: Why they are not
able to put this range in Massachusetts ... safety issues, noise issues?
As a resident of Ashuelot Village (a quiet village that prides itself
in its historic covered bridge bringing nationwide tourist and
photographic visits), I ask the ZBA and Winchester’s citizens to deny
this request.
No one can prevent accidents from
high-powered guns in that kind of learning environment, especially
considering that most of the students will be out-of-town
non-professionals, roaming the grounds in “action shooting” mode, where
no bars hold the guns in safe positions.
In addition, our potential
tourist trade, which should be encouraged, will evaporate due to the
fact that humans do not like to be in places with sustained pulsing
bursts of noise.
People will move, tax values of
surrounding properties will diminish and ultimately bring in less
property-tax income to the town. As a result, everyone’s taxes will go
up, while an out-of-state company gets only the benefits.
Ridgeline’s paid legal and sound
professionals showed absolutely no interest in citizens’ concerns of
both safety or noise, stating disrespectfully that: “That’s just the way
people are,” when asked about the complaints of noise around gun ranges
in residential areas. One Ashuelot family with small children and
animals has the range backing directly up to their property. This is not
right. Don’t change the laws that protect us.
Please stand up for a safe place
for our children to grow up in; stand up for the rights of residential
citizens who are asking that this variance be denied.
This sort of range does not belong in a residential area. We’re anti-location, not anti-gun.
The hearing is today at 7 p.m. at Winchester Town Hall.
JULIA FERRARI
Ashuelot
Good to see the Informer back! You have definitely been missed.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Julia, and all who got to speak at the meeting. Ridgeline's attorney got more time than he should have, which caused the ZBA to close comments before everyone from town who wanted to speak could do so. Next meeting will be early - the FIRST Thursday (2/2/17) of the month because of conflicts with other town meetings. So please come out, sign petitions and/or cards addressed to the ZBA expressing your opposition to the variance.