|
|
|
| 1. | Riley's Farm doesn't believe in agriculture. |
| A very high official at the county (very high) told me
some folks were actually saying we don't really engage in agriculture
anymore. Now that is a real doozey.
We planted 150 new apple trees this year and revived the Joe Wilshire
terraces, we increased the size of our raspberry and pumpkin fields.
We have endured great expense to bring water to parts of the farm that
haven't been irrigated for decades and we have more labor dedicated to
brining in a new crop than has been spent on this farm in 20 years--at
least. Anyone who makes the claim that we aren't a
working farm is smoking some of that funny stuff. Take a
look at the totally de-emphasized agriculture below:
|
|
| 2. | This is a residential neighborhood. |
| Pure hogwash. Thad Riley likes to
talk about his residential peace, but he built a home next to his Dad's
business, which sees hundreds of school kids a day whenever Denny can book
a tour. He lives across from the Pilgrim Pines extension camp,
where kids sing campfire songs at night. Just up the street,
the Swansons are building a retail apple shed. (Good for
them!) The Wilshire gift shop is up the street, along
with the red barn restaurant, the CDF conservation camp, and Los Rios
Rancho with its deli and overnight campground.
Thad built his home after his family ran square dances in the Riley
Farm packing shed every night of the week during the banquet season.
Oh, and by the way, his brother Devon runs a school tour business right
next to Thad's house, with a retail gift store, as many as 3 or 4 school
busses a day, and hayrides right in Thad's back yard.
(If you can believe it, Thad is effectively saying, "I don't mind the
businesses right next to me; I mind the ones further away.")
Just down the street, the county approved a wedding facility complete with
outdoor amplified nighttime music. Do you know of any residential neighborhoods that feature a prison camp, youth camps, restaurants, dance barns, wedding dance halls, and a few living history farms to boot? |
|
| 3. | Riley's Farm is a noise nuisance. |
Watch the Video. If anyone paid for admission to our Revolutionary War Adventure, thinking they were going to get to see some real shooting, they would ask for their money back. We fire six down-loaded shots a day, and each of them makes less noise than a truck driving by on the highway--as confirmed by an independent noise study. The myth that this program is a full-fledged major re-enactment has been one of their most useful lies, and they tell it over and over and over again. |
|
| 4. | They aren't trying to shut us down. |
| Imagine the following conversation: Complainer: We aren't trying to shut you down. We just want you to put an end to your most successful programs and commit to a land review application that will cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars to complete without any guarantee it will be approved. We will follow the application closely and make sure it includes only land uses that have no chance of economically sustaining your property. Us: Hmm. You see hundreds of school children per day and you don't have any land use permits. Will you submit to the same process? Complainer: No. That's completely different. That's just harassment for complaining about you. We want you to consider us non-commercial residents when we have a problem with you, but established Oak Glen businesses when our land use annoys you. Thad Riley claims, in public, that he has a problem with our Revolutionary War adventure, but our case file includes his opposition to our dinner programs for seniors. The Swansons have complimented us on keeping our overnight groups quiet, but now they have moved on to complaining about square dance calling in the barn. This is really death by complaint. "We aren't shutting you down all at once; we want to do it piece by piece." If we allowed each complainer to shut down the parts of our program they objected to individually, we would be left with nothing collectively. There were, of course, a small band at the planning commission who actually shouted "shut 'em down; shut 'em down," but the wiser heads among the opposition have told them to be quiet. It's much easier to do it all by forcing us pay fees until we're bankrupt. |
|
| 5. | "How can we (wringing hands) support a project that has more than 3 times the full time population of Oak Glen?" |
 Sophistry.
The Wildlands Conservancy is approved for 750 guests.
The wedding facility on 5 acres down the road is approved for 250 guests.
The Oak Glen group camps are approved for hundreds of guests each.
Oak Glen establishments routinely host a guest population that exceeds the
permanent resident count of Oak Glen. Here's a
picture (above) of the parking situation over at Mom's Country Orchards,
one of our most vitriolic critics, where they have clearly exceeded their
parking capacity and are sending their guests out onto Oak Glen road
itself. Apparently, high customer counts are okay
for Alison Law, but not for the rest of Oak Glen. (Keep
in mind, the establishment above is not commercially zoned.)Some of the very same folks who think a MAXIMUM guest count of 1200 on 55 acres is too much (we would most likely average about 500 a day), are the very same ones who don't want to accept the equivalent guest counts on their 3 acres. If 1200 is too much on 55 acres, would 65 guests be too much for 3 acres? |
|
