Editor, Gazette-Journal:

A cursory reading of the Mathews County Comprehensive Plan proposes to recommend certain sites within the county for stewardship and protection. The plan contains identification of certain sites as targets for acquisition, easements and guide priorities for restoration activities. Are these certain sites private property? What criteria are used to designate these sites as targets for acquisition? By whom? What constitutes restoration activities?

The comprehensive plan also cites, "Given development constraints and environmental factors affecting Mathews County, land development in the future should be more conservative than what exists today. Greater land guidance and controls are needed." I hesitate to ask, whose land? What environmental factors? What is meant by "development constraints"? Whose guidance? What controls? This is beginning to sound like the old Soviet style central planning.

The Mathews County Comprehensive Plan, like...