page_36 < previous page page_36 next page > Page 36 But when she looks through her living room window and watches yellow earth-moving equipment kicking up huge circles of dust as the cement block foundation for Garden Spot Village is being laid, the smile evaporates. Watching the dust, Susan Jackson says, "In my opinion, Victor Weaver would never have operated in this manner. Never. What I'm about to say does not apply to him." 9 With that disclaimer emphatically made, Susan Jackson begins, "The 'Mennonite Mafia' is exactly what you would think of in the Sicilian Mafia as far as money and power goes and pulling stringsbut without the violence. I would put it on that level. "We here in the valley found out that there is no way we would win against these people. There's just too much power, too much money, and too much influence. "I was born and raised here in Lancaster County. You have to actually live here for a little while to understand what's really happening. And Mennonites are not all like that! It would be wrong to say that, a stereotype. "But there is this certain small group. You just want to scream at them and say, 'Is this what they teach you in your Bible? Is this what you go to church for on Sunday?' and throw it back in their facesbecause from Monday to Saturday it just doesn't go. "They just haven't taken into consideration the people in this area. They saw in those meetings how upset we were; they saw hundreds of people stand up and say, 'We don't want it!' and they could have cared less! "All they want is to build this thing, and I don't care how many times over and over again they say that this is being built for people in this area, it is not for people in this area. It's for people from the New York and Philadelphia areas to retire into. And look at what it costs to get into the retirement villages!" Susan Jackson's concerns about who lives in a retirement centerand for how muchwere recently addressed in a Lancaster Intelligencer Journal "Special Report" on Lancaster County's status as a "retirement mecca." The report noted that Willow Valley retirement center has ''been taking its promotional efforts on the road for more than a year, hosting luncheons in New Jersey, Wilmington, Del., Baltimore and Philadelphia for prospective buyers.... More than half of Willow Valley's residents come from those areas" (emphasis added).10 "We've got a generation [of senior citizens] today whose income is probably the highest we'll ever see with pensions, Social Security and huge capital gains from housing stock," said Karen Adams of the American Association of Homes and Services for the Aging Development Corp. Such income, the article went on to note, was "unlikely to be repeated in future generations."11 Â < previous page page_36 next page >