(The following column by Ben Price appeared on the Roanoke Times website on January 23. Price is projects director of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, based in Chambersburg, Pa.)
ROANOKE, Va. — The controversy over Norfolk Southern Corp. building an intermodal rail facility in Elliston has drawn the attention of Del. Dave Nutter and The Roanoke Times. Nutter has proposed legislation that would put some decision-making authority in the hands of the people affected by the railroad corporation’s project. That drew an anti-democratic response from the editors that was loaded with condescension.
The editors’ confusion about the meaning of the term “public interest” led them to dismiss community decision-making as the mere “Not In My Back Yard” whining of “narrow interests.” Shouldn’t self-government by the people where they live be counted among the highest of public interests? After all, if government by the people doesn’t exist where they live, where on Earth does it exist?
The editors wrote: “The delegate’s efforts to force responsible corporate citizenship … could hold the public good hostage to the narrow interests of a few.” Since when have the people become the “few” and the corporations “citizens”? Norfolk Southern Corp. has 10 directors. Elliston has about 4,000 residents. Your newspaper would have us believe that the people of Elliston should be prevented from deciding what the “public interest” is in their community while accepting the judgment of 10 directors of the Norfolk Southern Corp.
It is the lack of local veto power over projects devised by a handful of people in corporate boardrooms that allows a powerful minority to dictate the future of our communities. We are all held hostage to the narrow profit interests of the few. The problem with Nutter’s bills is that they don’t go far enough.