To the editor:

I’m being screwed by Langley and I didn’t even need to take my pants off. You should all get your pitchforks and come on down for the Feb. 24 hearing. Lace your pants up real tight.

Mind you, the upcoming public hearings are not a time to debate. It’s a time to meekly take the podium — maybe you’ll get two minutes — and lament all the terrible things and personal hardship the nasty new legislation has wrought. And perhaps I will. But the place to really throw the mud around seems to be right here, in the good old South Whidbey Record.

Ever pushing the agenda to turn Langley into an economically starved city, those elected and appointed to serve now serve only to rule and dictate from the top down. I join the herd of quiet creatures cowed by modern life and conformity. I don’t want to interfere. I’m kind of worn out. I stayed out of the “re-imagining process” not having three years to devote to imagining things (I already believed in), like peak oil and climate change. Big-picture perspectives we celebrate in Langley allow sweeping changes, and we can mettle in just about anything that catches our attention. What seems truly sustainable in Langley is its arrogance, its high-mindedness and its in-your-faceness. Where’s the pie-throwing brigade? Throw the bums out!

The city is going broke because it’s run like a think tank, not a business. It’s hit a bad stretch of road with the Dog House gone, the drugstore gone, the gas station gone, the marina gone. The young people move out and the old people move in. Speculators build houses that now sit vacant along with stores and commercial property.

And now we have the new code to drag us down even more. As an example, the city wants me to give them 70 percent of my property (about six acres) for open space, and then have me create and fund a 10-year management plan for the land I just gave them. Who dreams this stuff up? I guarantee it’s not someone giving up 70 percent of their property.

James Anderson

Langley