LETTER: Brian Endle works with and unites community

To the editor:

Mr. Endle, and those who stood up with him for Buffalo-Soapstone’s community, report with pride that, “…Brian went door-knocking to let us know what was going on in our community!”

It seems that the Buffalo Mine-Soapstone area Community Council asked the MSB to help them write a Comprehensive Plan for their Community. Seeing a sign announcing the event, Mr. Endle walked into a community council and found 15 people voting (about 1% of the community) on what he discovered to be a zoning effort. Fortunately, the entire plan could not be voted on in that one night, so Mr. Endle took the roughly 80-page Plan home to read. As I recall, his words were, “… the more pages I turned the more I found the freedom to use and enjoy my private property was being limited, restricted and eliminated. It was zoning without using the word.”

He started door-knocking and sharing what he had learned. Informed, he and his neighbors attended the next meeting. Then more people went door-knocking and inviting people to another meeting.

After about 1 month, they organized about 100 people to put the Plan down and then Mr. Endle and 4 of his new and old friends ran for the Community Council and were elected, replacing the entire board. The new council started working on ensuring that a lack of knowledge would never adversely affect their community again. They revised their by-laws and worked with their community over the next year so that a 60-person group must participate in any planning for their community, which is about 6% of the community, instead of only the 1% previously represented.

Mr. Endle was elected to serve as president of his Community Council. Yes, those community members became the leaders in their community, through the elective process. When his term ended, Mr. Endle stepped down because the job was done. The community continued to meet, but the majority of those that sided with the original leadership decided not to join them and the quorum was not made, thus ending the community council. After Mr. Endle stepped down as Community Council President, he was encouraged to apply for and serve on the Planning Commission.

On the Planning Commission, he learned how hard it was for him to expand the Borough’s notification process to include the entire community. Regardless of what he tried to do, he found opposition from Planning Department staff and no one official reaching out to assist him in building greater transparency into efforts like these. He also learned that even if the Planning Commission passed something, the Assembly could kill it.

Brian Endle is running for Assembly to ensure private property rights through greater governmental transparency. He believes in smaller government and will work with the Assembly to reduce government before increasing revenues (taxes, fees and fines). As for rolling up his sleeves, Brian has never claimed he single handedly stopped a travesty occurring in his community, but he has claimed working with his community to ensure the continuance of their livelihoods and lifestyles. I’d say this stand-up, self-motivated and motivational man deserves Assembly District 1’s votes.

—Beth Fread

Palmer