Pay attention to ballot question

I hope everyone is paying attention to the details of the upcoming ballot question on Open Spaces. The November ballot question is very different from other Green Acres/Open Space questions put before voters in the past. This one would authorize our county to use money in the Trust Fund for “stewardship projects.” I hope that’s ringing a bell! Our state’s current idea of “Forest stewardship” includes commercial logging of public lands, first revealed two years ago in the Sparta Mountain WMA Forest Stewardship Plan. The outrage expressed by citizens against logging has continued for two years at town meetings and at a SC Freeholder Meeting. So how outrageous is this, to now ask voters to let them use Open Space Trust Fund dollars to log our public woodlands in this ballot question? Vote against it and any other mentioning “stewardship” until our state removes the cutting, removing and selling trees from our public lands from all of its plans.
Robert Califano
Hardyston Township