Landslide
To the Editor:
This is in response to the letter to the editor from Cary Louderback on June 2nd, 2016.
It has warmed our hearts to read the well written words of Mr. Louderback’s thoughts and inquisition of county officials regarding the landslide of which we claim has been caused by the Switzerland County Highway Department. To know that an individual of whom we have never met, has taken a stand above our landslide (metaphorically speaking of course) rather than crawling beneath it as all of our elected officials have done thus far. Mr. Louderback demonstrates more care and concern for his community, environment and fellow neighbors than the people being paid to bogusly claim to be doing. Thank you Mr. Louderback!
Legally speaking, what Mr. Wil Goering is doing is completely illegal. To clutch the very documentation of information pertaining to our home and the destruction of our property for which it sits upon, through excuses such as it was purchased through other sources of revenue, is completely causing distrust amongst we the people of Switzerland County. Additionally, Mr. Goering has stated he cannot divulge the information within the engineer(s) report(s) because the county insurance company may choose not to pay if we were to see what the report states. We call his bluff and from our perspective, it appears that Mr. Goering has mud stains on his hands. Mr. Goering is well aware that it is near impossible for a private homeowner/individual to hire a geo-technical engineer and this was verified by the geo-technical engineer the county had hired. He explained that they typically just provide assessments for entities, agencies and businesses; in addition to being extremely costly. If someone knows a geo-technical engineer who would be willing to provide us an assessment, please send them our way.
Per the insurance division of our loan holder, we are unable to have a freeze placed on our mortgage payments without that very documentation, and we refuse to file bankruptcy. So now we ask, is Mr. Goering willing to make our mortgage payments until settlement occurs, in addition to paying us retro payments since the date of his attainment of the engineer(s) report(s) from 3/30/16 and 4/11/16? If not, is Mr. Goering willing to temporarily place us in a home equivalent to our 2600 square foot home so that we can be as close to as comfortable as we were prior to the evacuation? If the answer remains no, Is Mr. Goering willing to tell us that the documentation shows that it is safe for us to move back into the very home that the geo-technical engineer the county had hired and had told us that it is no longer safe to live there because the home is now in an active landslide caused by the county’s careless dumping of rip rap rock, changing the course of the creeks direction? Without that documentation we have nothing to lose…but our lives. Is Mr. Goering ready and willing to have that on his conscience…how about on his record?
Understand, we are your “Average Joes” living our lives as many others in and around the area of Switzerland County. We’ve worked hard for what we have and have planned for our future with a sense of security that we would live out the rest of our lives in a home that’s very own life will now end long before ours does; although that’s questionable with the amount of stress this has caused us mentally and physically. What has happened to us, can easily happen to you, or you, or you. According to IDEM, Switzerland County has been repeat offenders of unauthorized (AKA: illegal) actions, which has proven to have exhibited a careless disregard for the people of Switzerland County of whom it has and will continue to affect.
We have righteous anger; and encourage, welcome, and implore others to join in our mission to keep this from ever happening to another individual, another family, another neighbor again. Please find our website at Indianalandslide.com and please sign the petition we have developed to put an end to environmental permitting violations. If this petition gets 100,000 signatures by 07/05/2016, the White House will review it and respond! This is an electronic petition where you’ll sign by using your email address. The easiest way to get to it is by going to indianalandslide.com and it is on the homepage of the website. It can also be found through this route: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/environmental-permitting-violations-minimum-consistent-enforcement-standards.
We are not only paying our own legal fees for our personal attorney, but we are also paying Mr. Goering through our tax dollars to defend the very county department who has made us homeless…how unscrupulous is that? Shame on Mr. Goering and the cohorts of whom should be serving the people of Switzerland County, but are abandoning the law of the land and have decided it’s more important to hide the truth, rather than admit to their mistakes. At what point will they finally decide to surrender documentation and help us to put the pieces of our lives back together?
Lie no more! Retain information no longer! Absolve yourselves of this injustice and protect all citizens of their legal rights! We want nothing more than to be whole again and to end this battle of being homeless victims of an environmental disaster caused by the Switzerland County Highway Department. America is supposed to be a democracy, but here in Switzerland County it has turned into a county ruled by an oligarchy (a small group of people having control) and is headed down a landslide of becoming tyrannical (exercising power in an unjust way)!
Melissa and Ed Brush
Indianalandslide@gmail.com
Aggressive group
To the Editor:
There’s no trouble finding articles condemning fanatic, terrorist Muslims or Jews or Hindi, but what about fundamentalist, fanatic Christians?
I attended the ‘First Friday’ event last night (Friday, June 3rd), but the usual social networking, art, and music benefits were eclipsed and far outweighed by a large group of these aggressive, rude, single-minded people.
I arrived there to the whole town besieged by a gospel chorus at extreme volume from their stage across from the courthouse and so stopped at the Visitor Center to complain and was told that they had been asked to lower the volume, but had instead raised it.
The poor musicians there and elsewhere in town were completely drowned out by it. Outside the Art Center, I was accosted by a child handing out leaflets, and an adult demanding to know if I had chosen Jesus as my saviour, and when I demurred, was followed and harassed for several blocks. The children first with the pamphlets were accosting everyone they met on the streets, who were then met and harangued by the adults trying to make eye contact and “stare their victim down”, all the while aggressively quoting the Bible and demanding to know one’s religious affiliation.
Far worse than the Jehovah’s Witnesses that come to your house, and whom you can order off your property and who seem to understand the word “no”, these rabid fundamentalists cannot be put off or escaped.
I was able to spend about 15 minutes total at this event, and was followed all the way to my car.
My religion or lack of religion is nobody’s business but my own.
I called the Visitor Center and the police, and left a message for the Main Street office complaining about my harassment and these mean, intrusive, fanatic “Christians”, and was told that there is no way to control or exclude them. How can this be? The volume, the harassment, and the aggressive importuning can all be prosecuted.
What’s the next step for these people? Violence? Kool-Ade suicide?
Shame on you, Vevay, for letting this get so out of hand.
Jeff Male,
Switzerland County