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I just wanted to take this opportunity to give the Warsaw Plan Commission and Warsaw City Council a little free advice.
From now on, when any large retailer comes to you and proposes a development at Husky Trail and Parker Street, just tell them to get lost right up front.
OK, well, don't tell them to get lost. You can be polite about it.
Tell them something like, "Thank you for your interest, but we have no intention of ever allowing any commercial development in that area even though it is partially zoned commercial."
Tell them, "We appreciate your willingness to spend nearly a million dollars to solve a nagging traffic problem for us, but we'd rather just continue suffering through the daily traffic jams."
Tell them, "We understand that expanding our tax base is generally a good thing, but in your case, it's just not worth it to us."
Tell them, "Even though we know that competition among retailers is a positive for all local consumers, I guess we just feel we already have enough competitive retailing."
Tell them, "Even though your development might be the best thing for Warsaw as a whole, we can't think about that. We have to think about the people who live near the development. Those are the only people whose opinions count."
Tell them we ascribe to the NIMBY, CAVE or BANANA theories of city planning when it comes to development in the area of Parker Street and Husky Trail.
(Not In My Back Yard; Citizens Against Virtually Everything; Build Almost Nothing Anywhere Near Anything.)
Honestly, didn't we go through this once before with Meijer?
That's a rhetorical question because I know the answer. The answer is yes.
We went through exactly the same thing back in April 2000.
I think the city got it wrong then when they denied Meijer's proposal, and they'll get it wrong this time if they deny Menards' proposal.
Same arguments. Same results.
Take the traffic argument, please. It's so senseless. The traffic situation at Parker and U.S. 30 would improve with the development.
Does anyone in their right mind honestly believe Menards - or any other major retailer, for that matter - would propose a development where access would be limited, restricted or difficult because of traffic?
These people are experts at this stuff. They want traffic to flow freely. They're willing to pay big money to make traffic flow freely.
There's no need to go on with this.
I wrote this column six years ago and it didn't do any good.
So if you deny Menards' petition, Warsaw, let's learn and grow together and not let this happen again, OK?
In the future, don't let companies like Meijer and Menards waste a bunch of time, talent and resources on this town.
Don't ask them for expensive traffic studies. Don't let them pay engineers, architects and draftsmen to come up with plans.
Be honest and up front about it. Just politely tell them we're not interested.
