Regarding the Fitzgerald subarea and the Bothell City Council vote on Jan. 19.

To finish my comments cut short during the hearing:

Zone 1 land owners have been scathed in social media by strangers who we don’t know. Unfortunately it is the easy right of people to taint our reputations with negative non truths that carry the power over the positive – 10 to 1. We have been lambasted and pushed through the muck while simply trying to move on with our lives. We have been prevented from doing so for so many years that we have been dragged to the wrong side of public opinion. This situation is in fact inane cockamamie.

And as for former council persons who now come forward like voices from the past, why did you not bother to do studies/tests for the properties east of 39th Ave Southeast to prove the best available science that was applied in the rest of the subarea. I remind you that in 2007 Parametrix representative David Sharrard told us that we would simply have to “assume” our inclusion in the experiment that is the Critical Species Habitat.

Oh bother, the immaculate assumption. Why was not the job done correctly in the first place? It’s because it was too much bother.

And now the proof lies in ruined lives that we land owner can’t go back and retrieve. That’s 19 years, thank you.

We now have proof of studies/tests done with private money but it seems not to matter.

Are we awful people? No. We have been unwittingly politicized but in fact are private citizens who are not required by law to disclose our private affairs to anyone. Just like you, citizen, it’s not anybody’s business.

Yet we are required to relent to “The Experiment,” the one of a kind. Without compensation we will be lucky to realize a small portion of the market value of our long time investments. We’re talking a lot of years living here; for the Berrys since 1971. Were we merely greedy in buying our land simply for investment? Yet another example of the ignorance flooding public opinion, willful ignorance. And all the while nobody, anywhere else, will be required to lose, as a body, very serious land value for the sake of The Experiment.

Remember that the three creek fishery that is the North Creek Critical Species Habitat is essentially not influenced by the properties east of 39th Ave. Southeast and too many people understand that.

I want people to know bits of history about what was formerly the Canyon Park fish farm area. This is a bit of truth from the past.

Long time resident and owner of the children clothing store on Main Street, Mrs. Alice Ricketts lived across 39th Ave. West of us and she generously extended her welcome to we the very young couple, new. She was kind. She asked us if we would like to come over in the late summer to press cider at her place, apples from her vintage trees. She wanted to invite the young couple who lived opposite to the west of her land. We who lived in the area were pretty sparse in those days.

We all assembled on a weekend to meet each other and were greeted pretty much with non acknowledgement of our existence. The other couple wouldn’t talk to us and it made Mrs. Ricketts quite uncomfortable. The interesting thing about all this is the fact that the other couple have worked relentlessly since then to seal our demise, even acting as friends while we raised and sold apples at the Canyon Park Orchard, often coming to walk up through the apple trees.

They know exactly the lay of the land and the condition of it. And I speak merely of facts.

So here we are, the fate of our lives in their hands. One of my worst traits in life is my tendency to trust people, a true fault it seems.

So thanks a lot neighbors. You have truly screwed over the Berry family. That should complete your journey while we, without resources, care for our family and grow ever older.

The onus of last night’s vote is on the shoulders of three new Bothell City Council persons and one experienced member defining the overreach that has now so invasively infected our local government. But the oligarchy remains unscathed.

If you want more history like this just ask, otherwise, good evening, thank you and adieu.

Tom Berry, Bothell