BREF! decorates developers home in Blacksburg
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Thursday September 27, 2007 13:53
by Blue Ridge Earth First!
FROM THE NEWSWIRE:
Between September 21st and 23rd, Blue Ridge Earth First!, a new EF! group that just got started up in Virginia, held their first equinox campout. Several Katuah EF!ers from Asheville came to their campout, helped teach workshops, and participated in the demonstration at Geannie Strosser's house.
Blacksburg, VA - We've always known Jeannie Stosser was a scumbag, always. Back in 2004 she was so upset over the widespread support for an anti-development candidate for town council that she was caught sneaking around his house peering through the windows apparently preparing to launch a bizarre allegation that something about "it's supposed to be a duplex but he lives in the basement," and "is there a staircase here?" or something and so he shouldn't even be allowed to register to vote let alone run for council and he should be all duct-taped up and shipped to the moon! Yep, she always has been a weird one, always.
So no one was really surprised when we found out that she was orchestrating recent attempts to pave over one of the last green spaces in the south end of Blacksburg and place upon the top none other than a Wal-Martsuperdamncenter. Of course the good people of Blacksburg love the quaint character and rustic feel that our small community is rapidly losing as housing and retail developments eat up space. The citizenry, smart, good people that they are have been organizing to defend against this attack for some time. Several years ago, sparked by a contentious debate over whether or not to build a sewer in the middle of a 169 acre nature park (duh) began a trend of anti-development (or maybe they would prefer "smart growth") candidates being elected to local government. This strategy successfully defeated the proposed sewer and has further integrated public scrutiny and citizen involvement into local governance, especially concerning matters of development. Now a new organization, Blacksburg United for Responsible Growth (BURG) is putting pressure on town officials and developers to keep Wal-Mart out of town. While keeping up a public presence of opposition through rallies, letters to the editor, yard signs and such, BURG has also focused a lot of energy on supporting zoning ordinance 1450. Proposed by a green town council member, 1450 would require all developments with a foot print of 80,000 square feet or more to secure a special-use permit. And alas, the ordinance passed! The people had legislated victory! Or had they?
No they had not. Shortly after the passage of ordinace 1450, the two development firms hell-bent on big-boxing us in, Llamas LLC and Fairmount Properties challenged the legislation on the grounds that they had already submitted prospective blueprints for what they call a "retail cultural center" and as such should not be subject to the regulations of ordinance 1450. The Board of Zoning Appeals agreed that council's actions, widely supported by the larger community, did indeed amount to retroactive legislation unfair to the real estate barons. So now BURG is suing the developers, the town of Blacksburg is suing the developers and Earth First! has hit the scene to flavor things up a bit.
BURG and the town of Blacksburg have a very good case, mostly because Llamas LLC and Fairmount Properties' case is so poorly-founded. A certain degree of actual physical work must be done on a project before it's legally granted "vested rights" to continue as planned, regardless of new codes and regulations which would be otherwise applicable. A good deal more is required than the pseudo-submission of prospective maybe floor-plans. Of course, even if the court does rule that that crazy nut Stosser and her crew somehow have the right to tear up mother earth and poison our community with a cultural center of desperate consumerism, we know better. That's why at the end of the first ever gathering of Blue Ridge Earth First!, we paid a visit to Miss Jeannie's home.
In the afternoon of the Autumn Equinox, October 23rd, about twenty Earth First!ers arrived at our craziest local developer's house just to make sure she was getting the message that this community does not in fact want a Wal-Mart in our town. In a matter of fifteen minutes, our merry band decorated the house, the car, the garage, the roof and the yard with an angry army of yellow frowny faces resembling the well-known Wal-Mart logo and a few choice signs reading, "Hey Jeannie, the people don't want it!", "Your profit hurts our community." and "No Wal-Mart." The action is a nice 'umph' added to the recent waves of Jeannie Stosser wanted posters appearing around town.
Currently lawyers for BURG and the town are preparing for their day in court with Stosser and company. In the meanwhile, Blue Ridge Earth First! is enjoying the onset of Autumn in Appalachia and an angry army of yellow frowny faces are preparing for Halloween festivities. Jeannie Stosser always has been an asshole, always.
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Comments (21 of 21)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21Keep up the good work guys!
Jeanne Stosser has been part of my extended family for over 40 years. Please stop the character assassination and stick to stating the non-personal objections you have to the development project. Your adjectives describing Jeanne as a person are cruel, mean-spirited, and wrong. State your position without the cheap shots and personal attacks.
if you're trying to start a new wal-mart, your a scumbag. that's almost the definition. i think that's fairly objective.
The fact that your group has something that they care about so deeply is good however when you slander someone's name and character it defeats the purpose of your group. The fact that you get joy out of someone else's misery makes you worse than the other party involved. This activity is not professional nor actions that mature adults participate in. You're group should do a little soul searching of it's own before pointing the proverbial finger at someone else.
I agree with the comments of personal attacks. I do not know this lady, but I do know that if conserving a piece of land is important to you, express that - not what your opinions are about this person. Have you ever thought about those that might actually WANT A Walmart? Maybe she's doing this in the thoughts of benefiting the community - certaintly I can't see that she would intentionally do harm to her own town. If conserving a piece of land is your priority, then maybe you could work WITH Jeannie, and not against her. Possibly, she'd be open to your ideas and interest and would like to create a development that could be a win-win situation. Organizations need to learn how to work together, even if thier opinions are different.
Certainly, that's not this lady's house?!! If it is, you people out to be ashamed of yourself!!! Don't we have enough going on in our nation, than to have you idiots dressed up in your yellow faces slandering someone's name, and defacing their property??!!! Is this the KKK of Nature?? Be for real!! If you are feeling this strong about Walmart, an opportunity for jobs, growth and income into your community, then have the balls to show your face!!!! Get Real people...Blacksburg has been through enough this past year...and now you're attacking your neighbor?? You said, and I quote "Of course the good people of Blacksburg love the quaint character and rustic feel that our small community is rapidly losing as housing and retail developments eat up space." Good people love the quaint character and rustic feel...Good people...quaint...rustic...so can you write another article and describe the people under the yellow faces?? Surely I hope the description doesn't include, "good and quaint" that certainly would be an oxymoron...yea, moron - that would be a good description!! Now, that I've given you a taste of your own medicine, how does it feel to be called names, stereotyped, and insulted?? Probably not too good, think about how this lady is feeling when she comes home from a hard days work, and just wants to have dinner with her family...but before putting food her table, she has to clean up vandalism. State your facts, and your opinions, but in reality, your not heard unless your professional - how do you think she's made it this far?? By being professional. Get real and grow up. Nature is important to our lives - so tell me, how many trees died for your cardboard faces, banners, and posters?? Not to mention the gas you used to drive to Blacksburg to Asheville to start your war...
So how many off you trust-fund hippies drove your parents fossil fuel guzzling suv's all the way from asheville to save the earth by littering somebody's front yard in blacksburg with cardboard and toxic paints, I wonder? Collateral damage is a bitch, huh? The point is, you would more likely affect change by actually doing some real work to promote sustainable growth. When you make environmental advocates look like a bunch of delinquent college drop-outs, you make it much harder for the true advocates to do the hard work of negotiating for sustainable design in the corporate arena... there, there you silly ankle-biters. One day you will learn to be effective... if you don't end up in jail first.
hey "disappointed", good job attacking tactics, not people. jeannie is building a wal-mart, so we KNOW she's a scumbag. all you know about the protestors, on the other hand, is that they do stuff like put frowny faces on the houses of scumbags.
but just for the record, of the "delinquent college drop-outs" and "trust-fund hippies" who came from asheville, three of them are in their 40s, two in their late 20s, and only two of them are even close to college age. none are hippies. except for the one student, they all have jobs. and they all shared one large vehicle, to conserve fuel.
Blacksburg is a lovely place to live and visit, however with your hate origination you have polluted this beautiful place. I do not know the lady that you so hate, but this is a free country and everyone has a RIGHT to go about there own business. When entering Blacksburg on
So. Main Street, it looks like a desperate low income ghetto. So this lady wants to enhance this area with quality shops, etc. so you thugs go on a hate spree. Your actions are those of Terrorist, all of you should be ashamed of yourself. This in NOT just your earth it belongs to all of us. You are behaving just like the Taliban, if it's not your way then lets go on personal character killing spree. Why not channel your engery into something positive, like working with underprivileged children, helping the elderly, caring for the homeless, mentoring children, working in soup kitchens, doing charity work. This would make the world a better place, not your hate actions.
Shame on all of you.!!!!!
T. Jefferson
This is unreal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You people are coming here from Asheville???? Why is this your concern??? How do you think the residents of Christiansburg feel when "every time" we go to "our" Wal-mart all you see is students running around thinking they own the place. Christiansburg has trippled in size in the last 5 years and you didn't see us acting like maniacs, but I guess now, Christiansburg needs to start speaking out. Blacksburg needs "something" to keep the revenue in their own town and keep the conjestion down for us.
If you want to SLANDER someone's name, you should at least spell it right. You people have no idea who you are talking about. Jeanne is one of the most well respected Woman Business owners I have ever heard of. Is she or is she not one of the top 10 contributers to VA Tech and the whole community of Blacksburg. Check your papers. It was in the Roanoke times not too long ago. That does not sound like a woman who is, as you would call it, "scumbag"! GET THE FACTS BEFORE YOU SLANDER!!! WHICH IS AGAINST THE LAW!!!
Yes, BREF singled out and criticized Jeannie Stosser, but they did it for good reason: she is a real estate mogul making fortunes. The people of Blacksburg overwhelmingly oppose the Wal Mart that SHE is trying to bring; and yet in our "democracy", even when a majority of the people disagree with something, business and profit take precedent. Because of Jeannie, the town of Blacksburg has to pay legal fees to duke out the opposition to recently passed ordinance 1450. BREF has valid reason and all the right to fight what Jeannie is trying to do. BURG is fighting it in the courts--but we all know that a mere group of concerned citizens with limited resources have little luck in defeating big business. So BREF is taking another alternate route in order to see the issue tackled from multiple angles. They did NOT vandalize anything nor leave any damage. But they did single a person out, Jeanne Stosser, because she is doing something that a majority of the town DOES NOT WANT and refuses to listen to them.
By personally attacking the people behind the home demo (and making fallacious straw-man attacks and assumptions); you are completely contradicting yourself. BREF is actually doing something to fight for environmental and social justice (you say WalMart increases jobs and is good for the economy? Get real! You are deluded). And by going after one of the people responsible for it,they actually stand a chance of defeating the giant corporate machine that nobody wants anyway.
UMMM, this action was pretty light. I'm sure ya'll feel much better about yourselves, and when that brand new shiny wal mart is standing proud under an american flag none of you will taste the bitter bile of your complicity in driving this behemoth down its suicide run called capitalist industrialism. Folks ya'll need to stop thinking in terms of symbolic actions, nonsensical absurdist theater, and self gratification and start developing tactics that stop these fascist, corporatist, and capitalist meglo-maniacs in their tracks. When ya'll realize that there is no such thing as "sustainable development"(sic) and (sick!!), that there is no room for wilderness AND civilization, that tree farms, cookie cutter houses, dams, wal marts, and highways all mean that rural folks must be alienated from their land bases, nature must be put to the rack, that poor, brown people must die, that cities must grow and we all must go along with the one two of that death march, when ya'll realize that this isn't a game, then we might be able to start to make some head way against the tide of the consumerist, technocratic, classist, racist, species-ist, sexist, money orgy called modernity.
You guys are vandilizing the wrong house. Ms. Stosser doesn't have any say whatsoever for what goes on that site.
You morons need to make a trip up to Cleveland and threaten the developers for this site instead of picking on the Lady that tried to not put a walmart on the site. If she wanted to sell out to walmart, then Fairmount would have never been contacted. HELLO.
Your group has no idea what you are doing, only listening to other uninformed Blacksburg no growth socialists that hate capitalism such as yourself.
If our wonderful councilman would have proposed dialogue instead of slamming through an ordinance then maybe there could have been compromise. But you left wing extremists only think force and government control is the answer.
This could have been avoided with proper representation.
I can't disagree more with your tactics and hope you all get yours in the end.
so after reading all y'alls happy messages i want to say that maybe it was a tad bit immature, but it is something that the people of blacksburg have come together to fight. this woman has not done freindly things to blacks burg, when i was down there last the person i was with used to live there he grew up there, and just about every where we went he would tell me that that thing wasnt there. what happened to the charm of b-burg, if a walmart goes up there then that charm and hometownly ness will disapear. and if there are people who want this thing they are probly college students who need an easy way to get the shit they need, and they will be gone in 4 years. but if there are in fact people who want this why dont they make them selves heard? they could make this whole thing a little more fun.....and trust fund hippies...i myself and 19 years old and live on my own, made my way on my own with the help of no one except 18 years of living with my parents, i pay my car insurance for a car that i never drive. i pay my rent and health insurance. i pay for my life, i wonder how much the accuser could say about that. and yes we WERE TARGETING her b.c she is who is there to target, she is the one pushing for this thing, and any way isnt charactor slander just one more action that every single politician takes, the politicians that are OH SO great for our well being.....all i saw in these negative comments were slanders against earth first! sit and think what your saying before you jump on the slander train.
Much of your editorialized commentary around Jeanne Stosser is just that. In your zeal, you incorrectly state the facts. Regarding the Tom's Creek Sewer debate it was not proposed to be going through a nature park, it is actually a large series of privately held parcels ranging from fully developed residential developed to undeveloped land.
Fortunately, the proposal did not succeed, but the facts are the facts - and you seem to have no problem misrepresenting [ie: lying] about the facts.
With regard to the 'First and Main' development on South Main Street: the land has been zoned and designated as one of the last remaining commercial parcels within town limits for nearly 25 Years and has been reflected as such in every town master plan since. Yes, a quarter of a century, so it should come as no surprise to anyone that a shopping district [regardless of proposed tenants] would be built here.
Further, despite the outcry by a minority of the town's approzx. 40,000 residents, it's placement withing an existing commercial district and within town boundaries represents VERY smart growth as it eliminates sprawl, puts retail within easy access to PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION, Bike access, Walking and a greatly reduced number of distant vehicle trips.
This quickly became a CLASS WAR not a Wal Mart issue-those in the ivory tower don't want "this kind of development" because it will bring in "the wrong kind of people"....how odd.
Do you mean people who might earn lower incomes and live in trailers? Do you mean the people who clean your offices, your homes, cut your hair, serve you in restaurants, fix your cars, your plumbing, mow your well-manicured tract mansion lawns?
The few vocal opponents would have you believe that this project will become a regional magnate for every pervert and criminal in Southwest Virginia.
Well, guess what folks, it won't. It will add more than $1million annually to the town's tax revenue helping to finance your streets, your sewers, your parks. It will put a host of retail options within a short distance of most of your town residents. It will bring retail BACK to town and the people with it.
i would love to have the names of all the people involved in this ridiculous situation. you people should be ashamed of yourselves! freedom of speech is a right not a privilege and it's only a right when it does not infringe upon someone else's rights. what you did was illegal and i only hope that ALL of you are punished to the highest degree. you didn't demonstrate, you trespassed and vandalized!! i've heard that your so called "organization" is more like a secret society. secret is right. you folks, who i can only assume are adults despite your actions, are so hell bent on proving your point or fighting for your cause that you couldn't even show your faces. seems to me that if one were to really want to fight for a cause and try to be profound, they wouldn't hide themselves. and in all reality the only reason you cowards coudn't show your faces is because you knew what you were doing was wrong.
you bitch and moan about how this development is going to be paving over one of the last "green spaces" in the south end of blacksburg. have you seen south main street? did you bother to drive your one "large" vehicle full of idiots down through that part of town? because if you did, you would see what a trash heap it's become and has been for a very long time. if you could unwrap your arms from the tree you're currently hugging then you would see what an eyesore it is. and did you bother to check out the stagnant pond in front of the asbestos filled hotel? if you stuck one finger in that pond it would rot off. oh but wait, keeping south main the way it is now is definitely preserving your "green" space, right? i wouldn't care what they decided to build there, anything would be an improvement. but regardless, just take a minute and stop and think that maybe, just maybe jeannie stosser isn't the real asshole here....it's you. "stosser and crew" are doing this town a favor so go worry about your own damn community in asheville! and as for the blacksburg "EF!ers...grow up!!!! i'm sure we can all think of a million other problems that plague our precious earth other than the development(improvement) of 40 acres!!!
"who are you to judge the life i live? i know i'm not perfect - and i don't live to be. but before you start pointing fingers..make sure your hands are clean." - bob marley - just a quote from someone i'm sure you're all familiar with. now go put down your steam rollers,
shave your legs and try to do something right for a change....stay out of blacksburg! hey BREF!...the people don't want you! see you saturday i'm sure (:
Get your facts straight. You should be trying to change the rules that allow this. To attack a person who has done some wonderful developments in this area and who turned over rights to the property because she couldn't get permission to build apartments there, is just petty and wrong. You've been lied to or you, and it hasn't be by developers, or you are too lazy to get the facts. Shame on you.
Any word on when they break ground and when they expect the Wal-Mart to open?
Hey Angry, the rules that allow this DID get changed. It's not allowed anymore (ordinance 1450). But this scumbag is pretending that she's grandfathered in, even though she hasn't broken ground yet, which means really she's not grandfathered in. So instead she's forcing the town council to use hard-earned tax dollars to sue Llamas LLC to protect their town from her.
PLEASE! the town should be using their hard earned tax dollars to throw you people in jail and keep you there until you learn to act like civilized adults!! i would personally donate my hard earned money for that. where do i sign up????
I am not familiar with Jeanne or any of her past projects, therefore I am not at liberty to say whether she is a good or bad person. It is possible that these activists have become slightly overexaggerated in their convictions against Jeanne. I think they are also misguided in their idea of Jeanne actually being able to change anything about this development. So, I would have to agree that this was not necessarily the best strategy for opposing wal-mart.
However, I am saddened by the hateful words that have been thrown from both sides of this argument. Both sides sound extremely hippocritical and need to review what type of language and facts they use before disrespecting each other. As a person who always tries to take a central position between the right and left views of the world, I believe that this who argument is occuring between two educated groups of people.
I thought it was a great comment saying that this development will provide an avenue to more smart growth, possibly slowing fossil fuel use with constant commuting to christiansburg. However, a walmart is not the solution! Anyone who wants to provide the facts that Wal-mart actually brings increased community happiness and smart development is looking at biased information. Most people know that Wal-mart does not provide high living wages.. most of it's employees are still on welfare, food stamps, and other types of financial aid. They do not provide good benefits, which does not help the health of the community - especially not the children of the community citizens who work at this Wal-mart. So let's face it... Wal-Mart is not a good thing for Blacksburg. I don't even think that building a Wal-mart in Blacksburg will keep students out of Christiansburg. The fact is Blacksburg does not want to be another Christiansburg - no offense to Cburg residents.
Also, I know a lot of my local Blacksburg friends move to Asheville, so don't think just because they were originally coming here from Asheville that they don't have any legitimate reasons to want to keep Wal-Mart out of this community.