Many of you have read about the Antietam Lake issue and without going into all the legal battle and acrimony surrounding it, let me tell you why I fought so hard to maintain the Lake and 560 pristine acres for preservation in perpetuity.
Will Rogers, the great
American humorist once
said; “Buy land, they
aren’t making it
anymore.” And that
is what drove me to
work hard for Antietam.
For over 100 years, the
land at Antietam Lake
was used for recreation,
whether it was
designated as a “park”
or not was not the
issue. The issue was
that it was green and
walkable and enjoyed
by countless thousands
of people over the years.
To take this land, to even
suggest that at some
point in the future
(20 years down the road), it might, just might be subject to development of whatever kind, mades me extremely nervous.
Maybe it was the first time I visited the Reading Nature Center located on the property of Antietam and in the 1970’s walked the paths in the seasons, and muddied my shoes on more than one occasion, and slapped mosquitoes on others, and listened to the songs of birds and the smell of fresh rain on the forest floor… I don’t know what it was particularly, but I watched unbridled development all over this beautiful Berks County for the last 42 years that I have been blessed to live here, and to raise a family here, and to take my kids on nature walks -- and to see this taken from all of us was so flagrantly wrong that it needed my full attention and energy for almost a year.
Antietam was not about money as far as I was concerned. Yes, the city will gain about $4M from the sale, but more importantly, the dam will be repaired (it is on the top ten dams in Pennsylvania that need repair), the lake will be preserved and the area improved by the county and citizens of Lower Alsace Township, who have the property in their backyard, and were willing to make a substantial financial sacrifice to help save it.
I am proud of my efforts to save Antietam, and hope that it can be seen as one tiny bit of positive legacy that I leave behind for our children. May they enjoy the birds and the mud as much as I do, and may it provide them some peace and quiet in the noisy stream of life.
There are really not many things that politicians can do, but this was one of them. To fight against special interests and to do what is right for the community.
