In our neighborhood, in Mercerville, we are fighting a Popeye’s trying to renovate and add a drive-thru window to their business. We do not wish this to become part of our neighborhood; it offers nothing for us. It will create more traffic that we do not need. We are a walking community and the extra traffic would only make our streets dangerous for our children and the rest of us. It will cause more air pollution, which will cause us to close our windows and use more electricity to keep the air in our homes so that we can breathe more easily.

There are many laws in place to protect us from this, but the board in Hamilton seems much more interested in listening to Popeye’s than to its citizens. I am not sure why we should be made to hire professional people for the board to hear us. But we do not have the same rights as the professionals from Popeye’s so we have had to put our monies together to pay professionals to speak for us (to the tune of thousands of dollars), when there are many of us ready to state our case ourselves in a professional manner. We have not been allowed the same time to give our defense of our needs and desires to see our community grow and prosper in the way we see it should. Popeye’s is always given the floor first, the right to rebuttal and ask us questions and we are not given the same rights or courtesies. It seems that we are second class citizens and Popeye’s is the townships first consideration.

So it seems to me, that the township is telling us to put our homes up for sale and move on. They do not seem to care what we have said, in our short time allotment. They seem to think that Popeye’s is the best thing since sliced bread and we are not intelligent enough to know it, a board member said that to us!! As Popeye professionals have said to us, our information and reasons why we do not want the drive thru does not count because we are not professionals. Are we living in a professional area OR is this area residential/commercial? Who says because we are only residents that we are not professionals? Who says that professionals are the ones to run our neighborhood? Is Hamilton Township telling us they want us to move and the only ones allowed in this township are professionals? Sorry to remind you that this is OUR neighborhood and you gave us the laws to protect it. So now it is your civic duty to make sure our voices are heard and the laws that you have put in place to protect us are upheld.

I think that the township should put its citizens first and hear what we have to say. If they wish to hear only from professionals, then they should have lawyers available for us at the cost of the township.

We are the citizens, Popeye’s is a business, who should have a say as to what will be in our neighborhood? I think it should be the citizens.