When we were in Maui in November, I remember getting an email from our neighborhood mentioning that Xcel energy was proposing to build a substation RIGHT NEXT to our homes! I wasn't sure what that meant at the time but fast forward a few months and this has been a huge deal for our community. We have a beautiful subdivision, with a lake in the middle, walking paths, parks all around and an empty field sits on the end. We are not sure what will end up there, but probably the last thing any of us want is a huge electrical substation. It will be ugly, there are the obvious associated health risks and we are all truly worried about our housing values.
Our neighborhood has rallied together and there has been picketing downtown at Xcel's offices, meetings galore, hundreds (if not thousands) of emails sent to our mayor and council members, emails and facebook posts all over Xcel's sites and we have a community website keeping us all united and fighting this together. One of our more recent stands was a picketing event surrounding the proposed site. We all went out on a Saturday for 2 hours and I was blown away with how many neighbors were there. We had over 200 people with signs and cars honked in support as they drove by and we got news coverage by 3 major stations!
We are still fighting, but I think we are getting our message across that we are not laying down without a fight!
My little picketer and I!
(Hadley was sleeping so Craig stayed with her and Brady only lasted about 10 minutes with us and then went home, lol)
Chase made it on the news that night!
