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Editorial writers do have lives
(by Dave Lange - September 09, 2010)
COUNTY LINE, BY DAVE LANGE
Editorial writers do have lives
Editorials are opinions that represent the official positions of newspapers in seeking to illuminate the best interests of their communities. Editorial writers need to take great care in keeping their personal interests out of them. Personal opinion columns like this one, however, often share the thoughts and experiences of the writers.
Although they are unsigned and are subject to staff review prior to publication, many readers know that I am the author of editorials in our newspapers. When my editorials happen to rub people wrong, especially those with political interests, they know who to blame. I am responsible.
So when a former local elected official took me, the editorial writer, to task in a recent letter to the editor, I was fair game. Specifically, the writer suggested that I personally could not relate to the importance of voters deciding the fate of zoning changes in individual city wards.
For the record, the objectionable editorial spoke in favor of giving Solon citizens the opportunity to decide whether to amend their city charter regarding the controversial issue of one ward being able to overrule the wishes of voters citywide. The letter writer supported Solon City Council's action to deny voters the opportunity to decide that matter.
More to the point, though, the accuser was wrong in claiming that my own "property was never threatened."
In 1983, my wife and I bought a home in Bainbridge Township. Twelve years later, as we were raising our children there, developers applied to change the residential zoning in part of our subdivision in order to build an office complex. Because of my position with local newspapers, I did not take a stand on the issue, but many residents, including my wife, fought long and hard against the rezoning. Township officials approved it anyway.
The citizens responded with a referendum petition, and Bainbridge voters, by a 71 percent landslide, 3,713-1,492, overturned the rezoning. The developers took it to court, where their attorney, Timothy Grendell, who later became a state representative and senator, argued that the "constitutional rights of the property owner transcend the referendum powers of the public."
Bainbridge Township Trustees refused to stand up for their residents, and the office complex was built right next door to our neighbors' homes.
I never wrote an editorial against what essentially was a judicially imposed rezoning; there was no way to keep my personal interests out of it.
Today, Solon residents are understandably concerned about a judicial ruling that mandates rezoning of 2.45 acres at SOM Center (Route 91) and Miles roads from single-family to two-family residential. Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge John Sutula, who ruled in the developers' lawsuit against the city and its current zoning, essentially said that, regardless of how Solon citizens vote on the issue, his court could impose the change anyway. Angry residents want their City Council to appeal the judge's decision.
While building three duplexes in a single-family neighborhood would not be as intrusive as an office complex, the parallels between the Solon situation and the one my neighborhood faced are striking.
If and when I write an editorial supporting the neighbors' position, vindicating Solon City Council's response, rationalizing the court's interpretation of property rights or some combination thereof, I will keep my personal life out of it. But I do have a life.
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