Joni Mitchell had it right in singing 'They paved paradise ... Put up a parking lot.' For years, Union County freeholders and commissioners have run a relentless campaign to take open space and pave it over for pet projects and political patronage. For over 30 years, I have opposed county plans to destroy natural areas including county proposals to put a children's museum on Esposito Park, ballfields in the Ashbrook Reservation, the sports stadium in Oak Ridge Park, and the diversion of seven acres of wooded, drinking water wellfield along the Watchung Reservation to development for patronage purposes. Notably, despite any concerns about global warming, the county incinerator spews over a half a million tons of carbon dioxide into the air annually.