If TRRACC believes it is not being heard, then they should go directly to Norfolk Southern (NS). Has anyone stopped to consider why the largest partner is never heard from? Why NS is paying so little to have the yard moved? Why Norfolk Southern would have a small college, with one person on point, handle their public relations? None of this makes sense, does it?
Here is one theory:
NS never wanted to move the yard and signed on only if F&M and LGH could guarantee that cost to NS would be limited, and that NS would not have to deal with the public. I imagine that NS views this move as a huge business win: a railroad project managed by a college president with an ego problem and with political influence at the State level. For them, this is a perfect situation: NS brings new track on-line in a new facility, but they deal with none of the backlash, politics, or money. Of course they signed on, who wouldn’t? TRRACC must change this equation if they intend to win this battle for their neighborhoods and their families; TRRACC must force NS into this debate. NS is the real player here, not F&M or LGH.
If TRRACC wants to slow the project and be heard, they must flood NS’s Public Relations, Environmental Affairs, and Community Outreach departments with letters. Initially NS will likely reference F&M Public Relations, but if you keep writing, they will eventually get real heavy hitters involved in the project. They will look at current management at F&M and LGH, and, I believe, see for themselves that the plan from the outset was selfish and one-sided. They will come to understand that you, TRRACC, were never heard, and that F&M’s website is not an example of real community imput.
If you write, NS will begin to understand the power structure in Lancaster, and more clearly understand TRRACC’s issues. NS will also come to understand that after the yard moves, LGH and F&M will be done with the project, but that NS, now the holder of this disaster, will deal with fallout forever. The first spill, the first child wondering into the yard, the numerous complaints on noise, polution, and trash, and the loss of your property values. It will be all theirs to deal with.
TRRACC, I am afraid you have gone at this the wrong way. There is no evidence that F&M or LGH care about you, or your families, at all. Stop dealing with the political machine; stop thinking that they care when you know they do not. Write directly to Norfolk Southern today. Write the Virginia Governor’s Office, explain that your Governor seems to bailed on your community, but that you want to know from him why one of his State’s major employers seems intent on ruining your neighborhood.
Clearly F&M and LGH have run over you. If you want to win this, TRRACC, it is time to get behind the wheel of a bigger machine. I would recommend the control panel of a Norfolk Southern freight train.
