To the editor:
Don’t be duped!
If you are one of those living within the flood and drainage plain served by Diking District 1 and who will be voting for a district commissioner on Feb. 7, please do not be fooled by the loud and angry rhetoric you are hearing, the half-truth innuendos and extremely mean-spirited character assassination smears being waged in both public meetings and in the press by a small group from Sunlight Beach calling themselves Citizens in Support of Useless Bay Community [CSUBC]!
The CSUBC’s Gestapo-like tactics, including disruption of public meetings and unwarranted legal action, all aimed at crippling the district, are not in support of our community, as they claim.
In fact, this group is relentlessly intent on simply wearing down and wearing out its more reason-centered and sober-minded Diking District 1 opposition, mostly residents living in and around Useless Bay Colony and the golf course, simply to get their selfish way.
That more rational and reasoned opposition includes the incumbent Commissioner Ray Gabelein, and me — and, everyone else living in all the residential areas north of Sunlight Beach, to Highway 525.
Management and effective protection from flooding for Diking District 1’s residents has been in the hands of responsible community volunteer commissioners like Ray and his predecessors for almost 100 years. At stake in this upcoming election is continuation of that historic tradition. At risk, is this bunch of CSUBC radicals taking control of this diking commission. If they do, there is very real likelihood of residential and commercial flooding.
Challenging incumbent Commissioner Gabelein is an articulate “front-man” for the supposed “Citizens for” group living in the small sand spit Sunlight Beach area below the golf course and below the wetland floodplain immediately to the east of the dikes.
This group of Sunlight Beach dissidents and their commissioner-candidate want to raise the water levels within the drainage basin wetlands to unsafe, significantly higher levels (in direct conflict with the Army Corps of Engineers’ recommendations), which will effectively take away the historic safety margin that provides for excess water overflow at times of extraordinarily heavy and prolonged rainfall.
If the overflow basin marshlands are already full when the rains come, there can only be one place for that excess water to go: my back yard.
Don’t believe the emotional and angry rhetoric of the challenging commissioner from Sunlight Beach! He and the special interest group of cohorts he represents do not have the interest of the larger population of residents being served by Diking District 1 in their hearts.
Incumbent Commissioner Gabelein represents responsible volunteer service and long-standing, first-hand experience and knowledge in floodwater management for all of the community served by Diking District 1. Ray will continue a nearly 100-year exemplary commission record of effective flood control practices.
Ray Gabelein deserves your vote.
DICK MCGRATH
Useless Bay Colony
