Teh funny. Jeff Hawkes gets hold of an inadvertent e-mail sent by an East Hempfield supervisor in which said supervisor trashes some off his colleagues.

These things happen. I’m sure that in virtually every municipality across the country, this sort of catfighting goes on, and it’s indicative of nothing more than a clash of personalities.

What interests me more, as it has, are the sentiments behind the e-mail; the degree to which East Hempfield supervisor Doug Brubaker and maybe some others on the board think they’re going to…

Going to what?

Is there an agenda here besides “stopping” growth? If so - what is that agenda? Continued suburban development along the lines we’ve already seen? For some reason George Wallace comes to mind: One house per half-acre now, one house per half-acre tomorrow, one house per half-acre forever.

I would care less about this if I didn’t personally live in East Hempfield. Because what these folks are going to do - as noted last week - is, they’re going to kill the goose that’s been laying the golden eggs.

They somehow think that the process which has made East Hempfield a prosperous community has damaged that community, and must be usurped. They’d couch it in all the familiar terms - “preserving our way of life,” yadda yadda. What it actually means is that the growth of the tax base is inhibited. That won’t result in a corresponding decrease in the need for services, however.

The cops and the teachers are going to want raises. The roads are going to need repaired. Old schools replaced. And particularly now - in a time when home values are falling; and in theory at least this might be reflected in the next reassessment - that’s going to exert upward pressure on real estate taxes.

Beyond that, this idea that the building/development community should have no seat at the table whatsoever is not going to withstand legal challenge. Should the anti-growth folks get the upper hand, East Hempfield could find itself enmeshed in lawsuits - lawsuits it may very well lose, and which in any case will also cost township taxpayers lots of money.

People in Lancaster County miss this or don’t want to accept it. A major, major reason this community has bested virtually every other in the state economically is because of that development we all hate, and want to stop. The people in East Hempfield may get their wish. Let me be the first to predict that they and their neighbors may ultimately be the poorer for it.