Last Thursday’s Gazette (newspaper serving this part of eastern Iowa) had a letter to the editor worth mentioning here. Responding to a November 27 article on the topic, Kirk Phillips and Mary Jeanne Perino Phillips wrote to express their disagreement with proposed road construction in Johnson county.

Three of the five Johnson County supervisors are in favor of the highway which would connect Newport and Prairie du Chien roads. It’s purpose is to make way for residential construction.

One issue is whether the county should pay for it. I don’t think they have any obligation to do so. Going back to the 11/27 article, that seems to be the opinion of supervisor Terrence Neuzil as well. He suggests developers, not the the county, should be paying for new roads. I’d go a step further and suggest a program whereby the county (or city) buy up the land to save it from development. As I’ve said here repeatedly, given that they can’t grow forever, any economic strategy based on physical expansion guarantees eventual failure.

Here are a few of the Phillips’s comments:

The proposed highway would destroy the rural atmosphere… and encourage further destruction of productive farmland… How will future generations feel about importing food as currently we import oil and natural gas… Between 1992 and 1997, more than 6 million acres of U.S. farmland has been paved, an area approximately equal to the size of Maryland… [Laws intended to preserve farmland] are increasingly dodged by elite commercial interests which do not suit the broader needs of our community and world.

Good points to ponder, if you ask me. It’s nice to know there are some in our neighboring county who oppose needless “development.”