WOO!!!

Well done, Francis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgMixeB2UbY

dang. that's a good summary of what I was trying to say!

I wouldn't say that Facebook is agreeing with the whole thing - the poll I ran had 91% due to some excellent sharing and external links on the Quite Zone website. I'm quite sure there's a sizable portion of the population that doesn't want this to happen.
Much like the FACC, it'll probably happen even with vocal dissenters. Fine by me - I grew up here, so I don't hear the train too much, but every now and again I have to stop a conversation to allow the train to pass.

My car still uses cassettes. I'm one social circle removed from these guys... seems a shame.

There's an amusing story of a guy who had a farm six miles west of Fairfield. He eventually became fed up with the difficulties of traveling through the sometimes 12-foot-high grass to get to town and back, so he hitched two oxen to a big plow and plowed a straight line from his farm to Fairfield. It took two solid days, and that path became the foundation for Highway 34.

I've heard that conspiracy theory, too, so I'm willing to bet there's a significant portion of the population who have heard some variate of the rumor.

Oh man, I deleted a whole sub-section on the history of the prairies in Iowa. I may revisit it sometime, but effectively:

85% of Iowa was once prairie - that includes here (today it's >.1%). Timber was relatively scarce - we have significantly more trees today than we did before the settlers arrived. There is conjecture that, in the absence of the yearly fires that used to sweep across the prairies, Iowa would have long-ago been forested - but I haven't looked deeper into it than that.

Will, every vote on every issue is deeply subjective and emotional. You seem more upset with people who put their feelings behind the cover of logic than whether a Yes or No vote is in the best interest of the community.

If both Yes and No votes are based on how people feel about the subject, then why be upset if some people feel one is more "logical" than the other? Your beef would be with those people, not the vote itself.

Speaking as a native, I'm fairly certain that, if the No vote passes, the Center will sit dark for years, eventually becoming something of an eyesore - broken glass, graffiti, and the like.
From that standpoint alone I'd vote Yes - simply to make sure someone (my money) goes to keeping it up.

As an example, take the former Breadeaux Pizza building on the Square. It has sat, dark and rotting, since the owner retired. It is PRIME real estate for any business - and considering the state of disrepair and the ever-increasing desire for the owner to sell makes for a very favorable, low-cost fix-'er-up that any franchise should swoon over.
But it just sits there, and odds are it'll sit there for several more years before something happens. In the meantime, those two bags of trash right next to the sidewalk are staying put, a sign of our inability to sell business real estate downtown.

So it comes down to what I'd prefer to do with my local sales tax - The Center needs it, they can have it. I may not go often, but sometimes I'm overwhelmingly glad it's there (I never would have seen Riders in the Sky otherwise!), and despite all the problems, I can easily see it shift into the center of Fairfield's social network.
Maybe that's wishful thinking on my part, but I do want it to be a source of pride for our community, even if it operates like the Library (for the public good, not profit). I'll gladly devote the quarter-fraction of the penny-per-dollar I'm already obligated to pay.

Show me a better use of that money, and I'll reconsider.