I have to thank Harold Kraus for his letter to the editor as it brought me back to the basics. He is right, I was one of the citizens who was very anti-zoning. More so, it had to do with the rush to zoning. Truth is hundreds if not thousands of us asked the commissioners to put countywide zoning to vote.

We were told that would not happen and in fact they put on an overnight maratorium for zoning literally days after Krista Gordon asked them to get in countywide zoning. All we wanted was the right to vote. We would have accepted the outcome.

Same applies to the Hadley building, all we asked for was the right to vote on it. Again we were told "No way."

Since countywide zoning has done nothing to protect the people who can be harmed by wind farms, I would have no problem supporting a reversal of zoning altogether. The people who will be harmed are now forced to hire a lawyer anyway. Again, zoning did nothing to protect them. In fact, it makes it even harder to sue. Harold was also right on when he said that the oil industry ruined the water in his area by the '40s. This is because back in the '20s we had state commissioners that were so excited about bringing in oil well development that they only had a page and a half of rules. They just wanted cheap energy and a boom to the economy. It took 40 years to get state commissioners who formed real rules to control the industry.

Looks like history is repeating itself. We now have county commissioners who have passed a page and a half of rules on wind farms. Why? Because they want cheap energy and a boon to the economy. The wind farm people hire real professionals to come to counties like ours and pull the wool over the local commissioners' eyes. I am not against wind farms, but we need to spend time researching the pros and cons. The biased zoning committe had nine months to refine real rules and added nothing to the page and a half of rules. One would wonder why. Yes, I am backing the petition to bring the Hadley bond issue to vote. No, I am not sure at all that the Eddy Clinic is the right move, either. I would like to research the county property on Vine Street, and I would like to research the city's property they got from the Army.

I would like to see a joint effort to utilize these properties to the advantage of the county and the city.

In closing, I am not a puppet for John Schmeidler, and I am sure he is not a puppet for me. We are both very independent. I am sure some of our views are similar and some are not. I do wish him luck in District 3; 12 years is enough for the current commissioner.

Jason Dinges

1584 Smoky Hill River Road