Editor:

The Fairhope City Council seems to be in froth over citizens outside the city limits not understanding that their destiny is to become part of the “Great Society” and be under City Hall’s control.

Fairhope City Councilman Bob Gentle, in a recent newspaper article, was quoted as saying that “everyone wants a piece of Fairhope and they are going outside the City’s limits to get it.”

Most reasonable folks would deduce that if you purchase land outside the city limits it is because you wanted the land, knew where it was located, and made a conscious decision to that affect. City Councilman Cecil Christenberry, my friend and a man of considerable character, has stated that he doesn’t like to use the word “control,” and if you don’t want to be in the city limits of Fairhope, then don’t come crying to the City Council to protect you from your neighbor’s version of a proper use of their property. A true freedom loving country dweller lives by the code of live and let live, knowing that all things have a natural balance and favors are repaid in kind, if your dogs leave presents for my dogs, my dogs will surely return the favor and all remains in harmony.

City dwellers don’t seem to have the same sense of balance and are always crowding the Council meetings demanding “control.” It is sad to see so many poor souls who feel that there is not enough “control” in their lives. In their view the more that the Fairhope City Council can ordinate, legislate, and regulate recalcitrant subjects who refused to be zoned or incorporated into submission, the more balanced and in control their world becomes. These subjects are the same country serfs who are forced to pay alms to the City of Fairhope coffers in the form of building permit fees, inspection fees, inordinately high utility tap fees, and planning and zoning fees all because the City wants revenue through its extraterritorial jurisdiction.

The Council’s appetite for control reminds me of the king who only wanted to control what adjoined his kingdom. He conquered the land around his kingdom only to realize that there was now even more land to be conquered. Even a country bumpkin might wonder if life would really be that great within the City walls. One decision is vibrantly clear; simple folks of the hinterlands rejected zoning overwhelmingly in a recent vote. That’s the problem with democracy; people who don’t know what is best for them get to make decisions. There needs to be a city ordinance against it!