Happy For Now

Last week, I blogged over at Rocky Mountain Moms about how developers want to build a huge "lifestyle" complex on the edge of our little mountain town.

The gist of the post was that I was opposed to it. I'm not opposed to something going in there, just opposed to 550,000 square feet of hugeness that includes the every-town-USA look that Target represent to me. You could say I'm anti-big box and you'd be right. Anti-development--no. Anti-big box. Yes. I've talked about those feelings before. I only shop at big box stores when I absolutely have to. It's a pretty rare occurence.

Anyway, even though the town council voted 5 - 2 to move ahead with the developer's proposal, the council decided to let the townspeople decide.

The vote was yesterday.

It was close. Very, very close. A record number of people turned out to vote--61% of registered voters (which is still actually sad to me. Shouldn't that number be 100%?).

We didn't get the results until this morning. It was that close. But around 5am, rumors started circulating on Facebook.

The result?

The developer's project was voted down by a mere 115 votes.

This isn't the end by a long shot. Something will be developed there at some point--this just makes it a little later rather than sooner. Will I vote against it again? It depends.

I think about how I would have reacted if the vote had been 115 in favor. I would have been sad. I would have thought, "Wow, just by 115? That's really slim for this to move ahead." It's probably want to proponents are thinking this morning: "Defeated by only 115 votes? Nearly half the people want it then." But even if it hadn't gone the way I wanted it to, the people would have spoken. It's democracy in action, which is how it should be.

I posted the result on my Facebook page this morning and that I was happy. There's other stuff floating around from the people who are not so happy. I had remained pretty mum on my feelings until recently and now I wonder what people's reactions will be when I see them next. Too late now.

It's a temporary reprieve, but I'm grateful