What is criticizing unfavorable action?
As happens so often in the pages of the Community Tool Box, Parkersfield is embroiled in controversy. The Committee to Oversee Parkersfield’s Environment (COPE) has been working hard for several years to protect the last patch of old-growth forest in the area. A piece of varied terrain, with hills, a stream valley, and a small open meadow, the land has served as a refuge for birds, small mammals, deer, and Parkersfield’s citizens almost since the town’s founding. Its 300-year-old trees have survived fire, flood, and a 19th-century timber industry, but now they face an even graver threat. The old-growth forest, owned by the same family for more than a century, has just been sold. The Parkersfield Planning Board has given provisional approval to a large-scale development that would essentially eliminate this natural resource. The Board sees it as an economic boon to the town, adding affluent taxpayers to the rolls and bankrolling school improvements. Now COPE has its back against the wal
