I love Attica. I’ve been here only 49 years as compared to the locals. I love the simplicity of life, the culture of “help thy neighbor.” We have good schools for our children nearby, churches of every variety, old homes, new homes, big and small farms, meat markets, beer stores, a post office, fire hall and our own fire department, plus many fine small businesses. We also have a fine township park that is safe to run, walk, play in, have picnics in, play ball in, have a festival that can hold a couple thousand people. We have rivers, lakes, ponds. We hunt, fish, snowmobile, all in some of the cleanest air around.
We have Imlay City within five miles, and Lapeer, a large city with everything you need, is only 12 miles away.
We have all of this in a beautiful setting, but if we just want to gas up we must drive between four and six miles to Imlay—a problem for some. It could be fixed with the addition of a gas station with four to six pumps. It could fit at the corners of Lake Pleasant and Newark roads which is the site of many accidents and one death to be sure. The area has to have a site plan that has been checked, the dump site has to be cleaned up, the roads with ingress and egress have to be made safe. A big bright light advertising the gas station will be high enough to be seen from I-69, I suppose. I guess a gas station would not be too bad, but it’s a truck stop, gas station, fast food restaurant and parking area that is now in the planning.
I’m thinking about the smell of an eighteen wheeler, the rumbling as they pull in slowly and the chemical smells spewing out into our clean air twenty four hours a day. I’m thinking about all the people who would otherwise pass by our sleepy town, but now will see the gas sign flashing and stop in. If the truck stop will be open 24 hours a day, will the fast food also be open 24 hours a day to accommodate the truckers? I’m thinking about the atmosphere they create. Truck stops, many times without meaning to, invite prostitution and lure potential runaways. I’m not saying this would happen, only that it could happen. We need to educate ourselves by reading what is available. Just Google “truck stop crime.”
It’s everyone’s task to make sure the right decision is made. In the end it does matter if we get a gas station or a truck stop.
—Diane Malczewski,
Attica
