Stop I-3 Coalition Monthly Newsletter

June, 2006

Let’s jump right in with activities and WHAT YOU CAN DO as we kick off a summer of Stop I-3 activity.
Updates of other areas will follow.

Burma Shave Blitz

In the May newsletter we explained about the old Burma Shave signs and our intention of covering as many of the 34 counties in the I-3 corridor with such signs but with slogans about stopping I-3. We invited entries in a contest to choose ten slogans and here are the winners:

The wildlife calls
Out to the brave
This is my home
You must save
Stop i-3

Roll the dice
Wait and see
Will they take
My home from me?
Stop I-3

From the Mountains
To the Sea
Protect the beauty
That we see.
Stop I-3

That little store
Where I bought gas
Is now a concrete
Overpass.
STOP I-3

They took my house.
They took my bed.
They took the
Whole darn watershed!
STOP I-3

The wildlife needs
The water clean
Fields and meadows
And trees of green
Stop i-3

This freeway is
A thing to stop.
Proclaim it from
The mountaintop!
STOP I-3

I used to gaze
At pretty stars.
But now the lights
Are trucks and cars!
STOP I-3

Smoky Mountains
Will be lost.
The smoke will soon
Be truck exhaust!
STOP I-3

So we get there
A little late
We do not need
An interstate
Stop I-3

Our thanks to the creative talents of Bev and Bob Baker, Lucy Bartlett and Sandy Lyndon

Now here is the plan: We invite everyone reading this to think of a great place in your county to put a sign set (5 signs about 100 ft. apart). They must be on private property, yours or someone who gives you permission and they need to be placed off the “right of way” usually 40 to 80 feet from the center line of the road. Ideal is to have these in areas of high traffic so lots of folks see them. If you will take responsibility to place a sign set and monitor it through the early fall, we will send them to you.

This activity is the essence of what a grassroots movement is about. Folks have signed up to support Stop I-3; now here is something specific you can do to activate your support. If you would like to place and monitor more than one sign set in your county, we will send you as many as you like up to the 10 sign sets per county. If the demand is higher, we will reconsider the 10!

If you would like to make an even further contribution to this effort, you could sponsor the sign set. Each sign set costs $35.00. This sponsorship is certainly not necessary for you to receive the signs, just another opportunity for a concrete contribution to Stop I-3 if you are so inclined.

PLEASE BE CLEAR THAT THE SUCCESS OF THIS PROJECT IS COMPLETELY DEPENDENT ON YOU. THE PURPOSE HERE IT TO INCREASE AWARENESS OF THE PENDING DOOM OF THIS PROJECT SHOULD IT COME TO PASS. LOTS OF FOLKS IN OUR 34 COUNTIES HAVE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF I-3, SO HERE IS A GREAT OPPORTUNITY TO GET THE WORD OUT!

JUST EMAIL Stop i-3.org AND LET US KNOW WE CAN DEPEND ON YOU TO BEGIN OUR BURMA SHAVE BLITZ. Please include your name, address, county and telephone number and also put Burma Shave Blitz in the subject line. THANKS!

Motorcycle Rally

Plans for this event are progressing at an exciting rate. It looks like the date will be either September 30th or October 14th, but we will let you know for sure in the July Newsletter. What we plan to do is have 1000 motorcyclist meet in Atlanta, hopefully Piedmont Park or a similar area, have a very brief rally and send off and then drive the 168 miles to the top of the Tail of the Dragon, a well-known 11 miles with 381 curves! At the end we will have a big barbeque for the bikers and anyone who wants to join us in Robbinsville, NC. The purpose here is to increase Stop I-3 awareness and the reason for starting in Atlanta is to have a big press event. We are planning to give each biker a bright vest that says Stop I-3 on front and back and we want everyone who can to come to send them off dressed in a Stop I-3 tee shirt and cap so that pictures can tell the story. Surprise speakers are being invited to send off the bikers plus a couple other very brief and dramatic happenings. LOOK FOR NEWS OF THIS EVENT IN THE JULY NEWSLETTER AND PLEASE SAVE THESE TENTATIVE DATES. WE ARE GOING TO NEED EVERYBODY FOR THIS ONE!

Stop I-3 Pro/Con Candidate Track Poll

We are undertaking an informal poll to track the I-3 positions of candidates for elected office in November, 2006. Anyone who is interested can participate! Please ask candidates for office in your county or state the following questions:

1. Are you for or against the construction of an Interstate Highway from Savannah, GA to Augusta, GA to Knoxville, TN?
2. Can you give us one sentence describing your position?

Please report your responses to stopi3@alltel.net and put candidate poll in the subject line. Also, please include documentation of candidate’s position statement: date as well as location (at a particular event, rally, newspaper article, telephone conversation, email, etc.) We will also need state and county of candidate as well as position they are seeking. We will begin posting results by July 1 and continue through November 7th Election day. Thanks for helping out with this. It is totally dependent on your involvement in asking the questions of folks in your hometown running for office.

Please note that the Stop I-3 Coalition does not endorse candidates for elected office. We will not post party affiliation in this poll. We will not list undecided candidates – only those who have a position for or against I-3. This poll is one of the activities to fulfill our mandate of providing educational information to the public about the Interstate 3 issue.

Fall Conference

Due to the number of events and activities planned in the fall, we have decided to postpone the Fall Conference until January. We will have dates and agenda to you in the July Newsletter. Winter is a time of coming together, going inside and making plans by a cozy fire of what we want spring to bring on the Stop I-3 front. We all can have this time to look forward to in order to put our heads together, share successes and failures and plan strategy for 2007 for our Stop I-3 Coalition.

Grassroots Workshops

Since so many folks are involved with vacations and childcare over the summer, we will start these workshops in the fall. Some have suggested after the November 7th elections when new officials are on board. This is another reason to start asking questions of candidates about I-3 in your area. If you are interested in the counties who have passed resolutions, go to www.stopi-3.org and you will find a tab in the menu bar that says Stop I-3 Resolutions where all resolutions are listed.

Petition

If you would like to participate in our Petition Drive, please go to the website and print off a petition to get folks to sign. Any gathering, rally or festival is an especially good venue. Please add a box in which signers can indicate if they would like to be on our mailing list. Instructions of where to send petitions are included and Ginny Heckel is doing a great job of tabulating results.

NOW TO UPDATES IN OTHER AREAS:

STAFF

We would like to welcome aboard Sandy Lyndon who is the new Stop I-3 Operations Manager. It is absolutely wonderful to have Sandy taking on major responsibility for so many administrative and research functions. We now have two staff members, Sandy and Elizabeth Wells, Executive Director.

GRANT RECEIVED

The Stop I-3 Coalition has received a $50,000 grant from the Lyndhurst Foundation. We are deeply grateful to Lyndhurst for this level of support and look forward to working with them as we move forward with stopping I-3. We have also received $35,000 from many other very generous supporters of Stop I-3, including $10,000 from NRDC. Our goal is to raise $500,000 each year as this is going to be a very expensive battle. Every single dollar helps to stop this ruinous road. If you would like to make a donation, you can make out a check to Stop I-3/SAFC and send to Post Office Box # 9, Sautee-Nacoochee, GA 30571 or click on the donation box on our website.

NEWEST SUPPORTING ORGANIZATION

We are delighted to welcome the Carolina Mountain Club as our 32nd supporting organization. They are 80 years old and foster the enjoyment of hiking in the western North Carolina and adjoining regions. Look on the website for the description of what all they do. It is pretty amazing. Our Stop I-3 Coalition is strengthened by every group and individual who joins us.

ACTIVITY IN TENNESSEE

Please note also on the website the exciting activity of the Harvey Broome Sierra Club Group in Knoxville, TN. They have had an informational meeting this week announcing their project of the year is to Stop I-3 and they have received excellent news coverage for two days by the Knoxville News Sentinel. Those articles are being posted on our website under news articles, so be sure to check out what they are up to. It is thrilling to see I-3 activity expand to include the state of Tennessee.

FHWA/ DOT UPDATE

The wheels of our government do indeed turn slowly. The latest report is that the 20% funds for the local share of the $1.3 million study, of which Georgia is paying 100%, have not been transferred to FHWA in Washington. Until this is done and the MOA (Memorandum of Agreement) is signed, the RFPs (Request for Proposals) cannot be issued for the consultants to make bids on the I-3 study project. Once the bids are submitted from the consultants to FHWA, then the consulting firm has to be selected, so it looks like we are still quite far away from the study getting underway. Absolutely nothing can happen until the funds are transferred from Georgia DOT, so for now all is on hold. Once this step happens, we will certainly send out an alert so we keep all of us on our toes regarding the timing of every step of this project.

HOT OFF THE PRESS

Watch your local news sources for the Stop I-3 Press Release issued just today. The first Regional Planning Commission in the I-3 Corridor has signed a resolution opposing the construction of Interstate 3. This is a major event! Let us all be thankful to the Western North Carolina Regional Planning Commission, which represents 7 counties and 16 cities, for providing this pioneering leadership to stop I-3 before it gets started!

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