The Valley Breeze | 6/8/2016 | www.valleybreeze.com
Freedom of speech: Protected by the First Amendment, protects our right to opinion without fear of government retaliation or censorship. The term freedom of expression is sometimes used synonymously, but includes imparting information or ideas regardless of the medium used.
It seems that I, my family and my friends and neighbors in the town of North Smithfield are having our freedom of speech rights violated. For those who don’t know by now, there is a company trying to construct a wind turbine that will be the largest structure in the state of Rhode Island on the property of Ruth Pacheco on Old Smithfield Road. The same Ruth Pacheco who fought the building of a wind turbine in Dowling Village.
So we, the neighbors of Ruth Pacheco, have taken up the fight to stop this behemoth of a structure from being erected. One of the things we’ve done is to have signs made. I’m sure some of you reading this have seen them; they simply say “No Turbine.” We’ve put them up in our neighborhood and in friends’ and relatives’ yards around town that have either given us permission or asked for them to show support.
Lo and behold, our signs are starting to disappear at an alarming rate. Is it the work of kids, or maybe people that are for the turbine or others that may share a vested interest in the construction of the turbine? We’ll probably never know. But one thing is for certain, it won’t keep us from our goal. We can and will buy more signs. We will do our best to stop this from happening.
If you have a problem with the signs why don’t you stop and talk to the person who has one in their yard. It will most likely take all of five minutes to convince you that this structure doesn’t belong in a residential neighborhood.
Don’t lower yourselves to thievery and trespassing unless that’s the only way you can express yourself. Don’t be cowards. Come forward and voice your opinions like we have.
My family and the families of and around Old Smithfield Road thank everyone that is supporting us in our effort to stop the building of this turbine.
Philip M. Paul
North Smithfield
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2016/06/09/no-turbine-neighbors-will-keep-up-free-speech/