I’ve been hearing all kinds of arguments pro and con over box stores. This isn’t about I can’t afford to go to Missoula for clothes, there’s all kinds of 2nd hand stores here. Yes I shop there and get compliments on my clothes. If you need clothes there’s your answer. This isn’t about property rights, it’s about preserving the beauty of this valley. I’ve lived where box stores came in overnight and ruined the area like a cancer. Traffic increase over 300 fold, more traffic lights went up then I could count, the once pasture land was gone and what took 10 min to get somewhere now took 40. Folks they don’t stop at one store, more will follow. There will be two more lights just on 93 and 1 on Blood just for one store. Blood will eventually go 4 lanes because it can’t handle the traffic and more stores will come because no one wants to live next to a box store and will sell.
This once beautiful valley in only a few years will look like Missoula, only we don’t have the roads to handle the traffic nor septic let alone the damage it will do to our streams and rivers. You’ll no longer enjoy the landscape because all you will see is ugly stores. Yes I have heard it all, but I have lived through it unlike many of you. What I hear is people being selfish, I want I want. Stop to think of others for once, and how you are destroying this land. So many are jumping on the wagon to protect nature, yet wave you’ll save 2 cents on a pillow and they run to destroy it without a thought. Better rethink and say no before you are sorry.
Dee Gibney
Hamilton