Letter from Irina Zubritskaya

What Is Board Thinking?

We sold everything and moved from New Jersey a year ago to live in this beautiful, tranquil area near the Holy Trinity Monastery. We love the peaceful rural living; we love to see deer in the fields and eagles in the sky; we love the beauty of rolling hills and waterfalls. My children love their Owen D. Young school and their new friends. It cost our family almost $400,000.00 to buy the land and to build a house on it. We had plans to continue investing: building a garage, and perhaps opening a crêperie place on Main Street in Jordanville. We wanted to grow a family here.

Instead, a decision the town could make may force us to leave. When industrial wind turbines are built—structures taller than the Statue of Liberty—our rural quality of life is destroyed. Home prices for everyone near the wind turbines devalue: Families are effectively robbed. We will be forced to move out of state and we will be taking our tax money with us. Why? No one will want to live next to the noisy, eagle-killing monsters. As houses in the area devalue, the entire town loses tax dollars. When $400K properties become $50K properties, the town’s economic base evaporates.

We must ask, what is the town board thinking? Many families who recently moved into this area were escaping the noise pollution of big cities. Families are still coming to the area, families who don’t yet know about the New Leaf wind turbine proposal.

There were three houses built on Chyle Road in the past year alone. But newcomers who invested into the area—as my family did—will be robbed. They weren’t planning or hoping to live next to wind turbines or a field of solar panels. They moved here in search of a quiet, non-polluted area, hoping to live in the heart of these beautiful, but now threatened, surroundings.

As news of the turbine proposal spreads, people are putting their plans on hold. Our neighbors on Chyle Road are already talking about moving if the project is approved. Bassett Hospital has a very hard time attracting medical personnel and provides huge incentives to bring people into the area, but New Leaf’s turbines will only serve to chase people away. You will obtain a lump sum of dollars from the wind and solar farm companies (to build salt warehouses), but in the long-run, Stark and all the surrounding towns will lose tax dollars as the properties lose their values and residents move away. That’s what my mother would call “penny smart and pound foolish.”

I hope that the Stark Town Board will preserve this beautiful area. Please consider how your decision will affect the wildlife, the beautiful landscape, and the lives of so many families.

Irina Zubritskaya
Jordanville