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Mount Airy Town Councilman Helt wrote in the Oct. 29 edition of The Gazette about the requested annexation of the Rigler property that involves the owner's plans for a sports or community facility. Helt's stated purpose was to clarify the facts because of "misinformation and lies circulating."
Personally, I have no preferences in the matter. I live across town, have no intention of using it, and my children are grown and gone.
I have questioned one remark Helt made. He indicated that "without the annexation ... [the owner] would take a sizeable loss."
Be that fact or fiction, it is the owner's problem. There is absolutely no part of that possibility that should be taken into consideration by anyone other than the investor and his legal/financial advisors.
How does Helt know this? Why does it concern him? If the owner is a developer, no one needs to tell him of his risk and exposure. He should know them better than anyone.
The owner is an investor who took a chance, the same chance I take whenever I buy a stock, bond, or mutual fund. I have no guarantees, and neither does he.
No council member should be concerned when someone makes speculative purchases. It's a gamble. He made it with no guarantees. Any future problems are his, not ours.
In fairness to Helt, he has advised me that he is not concerned with the finances of the investor. He says that he intended to indicate that as long as the investor's funds were tied up in the Rigler property, he may not be able to acquire an alternate location for the facility.
Well, again, that's the investor's problem and concern, not yours, mine or the council's.
However, and I don't know it to be fact, I've heard that the investor already owns substantial acreage in a commercial area. Couldn't that be used?
On the other side of the road, it appears that we have more gamblers. May I suggest that anyone who buys near undeveloped land is also taking a gamble, not unlike a developer.
Did they assume that the farm would always be a farm? Well, that's what happens when one assumes, isn't it?
Rick Blatchford, Mount Airy