Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.
- Henry Louis Mencken
The Farmington Township Supervisors, the triumvirate representative government closest to the residents and citizens of Farmington Township, have declared unequivocally that they want to end the township's reliance on the Warren County Zoning Ordinance.
While the desire may not be universal within the township, it appears that the local panel's decision is neither widely opposed.
And, after the testimony at a meeting in the township Monday night, it is apparent that what the supervisors have in mind is no zoning at all.
Although we believe that such a course may present the township with some potentially expensive legal difficulties down the road, we also believe that the decision should be theirs, barring any specific overriding state or federal statute that precludes it. Reference Mr. Mencken's 20-word summation of democracy.
The rationale for the decision, according to the supervisors, is a desire to streamline government by reducing the number of agencies the township must deal with by one -the Warren County Zoning Board. They assure that common sense will prevail in matters of land use and that development will not occur willy-nilly, since there will always be thoughtful and rational supervisors to watch over health, safety and property values in the township.
Though some might raise concerns about that vision of the future, there appears to be no ground-swell of public dissent from this position.
Therefore, to the Commissioners of the County of Warren, why not just let them go and get it over with?
Besides, there is a movement in Harrisburg to take some aspects of local zoning away from municipalities anyway, initially for the benefit of the oil and gas industry. But, who knows which special interest may turn lawmakers' heads down the road?