Open letter to the Committee to Ensure Primary Care:

Both the Medical clinic and a new fire station would be great adds for the town, but this location would be bad for the town.

Borrego survives on tourism. And one of the reasons that tourists like our town is because the town footprint is small and that it is surrounded on all sides by unspoiled desert and unlit night skies.

The proposed location next to the library is unspoiled desert viewscape that is enjoyed by people in town, patrons of the library and users of the County park. It is a part of what gives Borrego its small-town charm. Instead of bulldozing and paving over unspoiled lands and urban sprawling to build these new facilities, why not build them where they are more convenient to users by putting them in one of the many vacant lots or buildings that line the Palm Cyn Dr. business district?

The fact that the library location land would be donated should be a minor consideration when you look at the long-term benefits and harms of this project for Borrego. Besides, land costs are relatively low here so utilizing better located sites should not be a project killer. And perhaps the land donor can instead demonstrate their altruism by selling their proposed donation site lands and donating those proceeds to the purchase of existing commercial lots in the Palm Cyn Dr. corridor.

Please find a better site for these two facilities.

Mark Stevens

– Borrego Springs, California