George,

It is a good thing a supermajority is required to give away valuable and irreplaceable parkland. Without that requirement we would have already lost the land, and also have lost leverage to protect our community from the County and VDOT, who are concerned only with traffic accomodation, not traffic planning.

The officials we elected to protect community interests have found a shameful way to go ahead and give away the parkland anyway. The use of an easement clearly violates the spirit of the supermajority requirement put in place to protect parkland. An easement to build a permanent road, a major road at that, seems to violate the very idea of an easement. The way we understand it, an easement grants certain, limited ownership rights, and is attached to the land, not to any particular user. In this case the "limited" rights to be granted (build a road) effectively preclude all other uses, including the one use specified for the land when it was given to the city, that is its use as a park. What ownership rights are left? Pragmatically speaking, none. That is not an easment: its a giveaway.

We support Kevin Lynch and Maurice Cox in opposing this end-run around the constitution.

Liz & Gib Akin (electronic mail, December 2, 2003)