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environmental cost would contradict the mission of the very program through which the County <br />originally purchased these parcels: “to protect and conserve the county’s most important natural <br />and cultural resource lands before they are damaged or destroyed.” <br />“Severing Access” <br />I now turn to the specific concerns that David Stancil raises. This will also provide me with an <br />opportunity to correct misrepresentations created by our brief notes on prior site plans. <br />Mr. Stancil writes, “The current unpaved access easement, if improved, would sever access to <br />20-acres of the 79-acre future park site that lies south of the existing access easement.” If the <br />current access easement does not already sever access to the southern 20 acres, then it is <br />hard to see how making it about eight feet wider would cause it to do so. Why, for that matter, <br />should any such roadway be thought to sever access to the soccer fields or to anything else? If <br />the proposed soccer complex is built, there will presumably need to be some roadway access <br />improvement to it and its parking lots. When built, these roadways will likely be viewed not as <br />severing access but as creating access. Rather than multiplying the number of roads, future site <br />planners, hired by the County, may discover that the best design of the soccer complex might <br />incorporate the current access road as shared infrastructure. This was a conclusion reached by <br />prior engineers. In 2018 Civil Consultants offered two options for the soccer complex location in <br />their feasibility study. The first option, shown on page 8, shows the current access road leading <br />to the soccer complex’s parking lot located just north of what is now my ten-acre parcel. <br />If, on the other hand, the current access easement does sever access to the southern 20-acres, <br />then the County’s problem will not be with us but with the tower owner, Crown Castle. Crown <br />Castle holds a “perpetual right-of-way” to the existing easement both for vehicle access and for <br />the utilities running parallel to the road (Record Book 4683, page 157). It is my impression that <br />their service contractors and technicians use this road significantly more than just for a few trips <br />per year. <br />5 <br />It is doubtful that the County would be able to get Crown Castle to agree to moving their access <br />and utility easement. Crown Castle is a multi-billion dollar international entity with over 40,000 <br />cell towers. As someone who owns land upon which a Crown Castle tower is located, I can <br />attest to what it is like to interact with this faceless company. There is no one in Crown Castle <br />who has both familiarity with the Millhouse road properties and the authority to make any legal <br />decision about the access road. That authority rests with Crown Castle’s out-of-state lawyers <br />who have no motivation to cooperate in a neighborly manner even if it costs them nothing to do <br />so. Unless the County can find a way to legally require Crown Castle to surrender its current <br />access easement, it is unlikely that such a petition will even be duly considered. <br />5 I have visited the site on about twenty occasions in the last year. Twice I have encountered contractors <br />at the cell tower and whenever I visit I notice signs of road usage. Due to the amount of discarded trash I <br />find near the tower, I have considered setting out trash bins. <br />4 <br />136