Nexus Pipeline and Smith Road Raceway.

BriarcliffMx said:
Indiana brown bat only restricts tree cutting from ~oct/nov-March or so
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This bat has more rights than we do. It is not just limited to tree cutting, anything that may affect behavior patterns, food supply and so forth. I prefer to hit them with a Lousville Slugger and just blame that bat for it's untimely demise.
 
I don't want to see anybody hurt by this, but I've got way more questions than answers. I recognize what the natural gas bonanza has done economically for the state of Ohio. I know many people oppose it for the sake of opposing or believe that comsuming any energy that is not derived from wind or solar panels will destroy the planet. Then there are the people who oppose it out of ignornace or irrational prejudice. And there are the people who lave legitimate concerns and will be affected, inconvenienced, or substantially harmed. These are where my concerns lie.

If it an issue of eminent domain, then obstructing the surveyors might get a news story, but it won't accomplish anything. Surveyors can generally get access when its needed. When you purchase property, they often need to set foot on neighboring private property to make necessary recordings. If they are raising money to file lawsuits to impede the surveyors, they are throwing their money away.

If you are going to fight something like this, it should be done with specific damages, and when its being proposed in the interest of the common good, it must be fought in the same way. If the common good eminent domain argument carries a lot of weight, or is likely to prevail, it may be more advantageous to argue for recovery of damages and lost revenue than to try to stop it altogether. As much as I love Smith Rd Raceway, a year's worth of lost revenue won't be met with much sympathy when compared to moving natural gas for the next 50 years, especially when some of the neighbors have been eager to see it shut down for years.

I'd like to know exactly how the property and access will be affected, and for how long. I'd like to know what is temporary and what is permanent. I'd like to know what is compensated for, and what is not, and what is physically done to the property both long term and short term. I'd like to know if there are alternate routes that make more sense.

It sucks to have your life disrupted by things like this, and some careful planning on what to fight, and how to fight it can make for the best possible outcome, even though you still may get screwed, but sometimes landowners can actually come out ahead if they handle it right.
 
Larry is already fighting another gas company for imminent domain in the case of a farm in Lorain County so we are no strangers to the ins and outs of these things and he does have a lawyer helping him that specializes in these issues reccomended by the farm bureau.We have been researching and going to meetings for these issues for over a year now. The issue is where they want to put the pipeline which is 85 ft off the property line into the middle of the track, the fact that they want to use our parking area and part of the track for a staging area for several months in the summer which would force us to lose a season and the much larger issue that they don't want anything even a elevation in dirt put over the line once its in....We are not trying to stop them entirely, we'd like a reroute or to put them closer to the property line which would keep them out of the middle of the track, Permission to build jumps/table tops etc on top and we don't want them using our parking lot for their equipment and to store supplies which would greatly prolong our closure.
 
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I thought I had the map of where/what they want to do at the track on my phone but its the wrong one, there is a detailed map of what they would like to do at the track in the concession stand for anyone who would like to see. Again we are not trying to stop them entirely we just have some reasonable requests that would allow us to make the best of the situation and continue to build up our business.
 
The other concern is that for the last 3 years we have built up our number of riders on a Wednesday evening practice quite a bit and we'd hate to think what a year of closure would do to those numbers? How many years to build it back up? I've personally seen lots of popular small business struggle after a long term closure. We firmly believe that we can and will come back strong from this however it turns out. However we are trying to minimize the effects as much as we can.
 
hershey said:
WTF? How is this even possible? If its private land how can they tell them to let somebody on?
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You of all people know we are no longer a free country!
We are bound to the laws of the criminals and the Very rich. You have no rights. America is dying.
 
My brother had a huge gas line go through his farm. He used it to his advantage and made a deal with the gas company. They cleared woods and brush he wanted gone, directed it where he wanted, graded the ground ,terraced the hills and planted grass. I thought it would have made the coolest old school GP track. Then he had them plant several hundred new trees. Maybe Larry can use this to his advantage, just a thought.
 
I hope nothing but positivity can come of this. I really like having the luxury to ride at smith road. It's easy to get to, track is reasonable and very fun !!!
 
Thanks for posting the information, Christie. It gives me confidence this is being handled in a logical and rational manner. Today's popular method of resolving these type of issues is for a bunch of screaming idiots to carry signs saying "Track Lives matter" and demand abolishing use of the resource rather than solve the issue. I sincerely hope things can be worked out to where the track remains, and you come out ahead. It's not just a piece of land, but a historical business that will greatly impacted by any interruptions, and recovery will not occur for some time after the interruptions end.
 
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