Aberdeenshire, Scotland

Donald Trump has been narrowly rejected by a group of seven individuals who comprise the "infrastructure services committee" of the Aberdeenshire Council in northeast Scotland.

That, of course, is where Trump wants to build his massive and latest development project - a 2 billion dollar golf resort.
There are two things at stake: the potential, and I stress that word, for huge economic windfalls and the potential for major and permanent damage to the environment, including the eradication of various threatened bird species in the area.

Aberdeenshire Council is opting for the lure of the money while the infrastructure services committee is looking further down the road and worrying about permanent damage to a protected area of the country.

And with that in mind, the committee rejected by one vote Mr. Trump's application to build and develop his mammoth project.

The people of Aberdeenshire are up in arms and when the people speak, politicians tend to react quickly. So, the Council is planning to call an emergency meeting to discuss ways of rejecting the committee's decision.

This is dangerous territory for the Council; to reject a decision taken by one of its governmental organs would be an extraordinary action that could only undermine the ultimate leadership of the Council in the future when it considers other economic plans. Its infrastructure services committee could be called on the carpet repeatedly, thus eroding its authority to make the hard decisions and eventually becoming nothing more than a rubber stamp for Council.

That's not likely what the people of Aberdeenshire want. But what they seem to want right now is that enormous financial carrot that Trump has been dangling before them and is now threatening to take elsewhere.

Reaction from interested individuals pours in from around the world via the web. It falls neatly into two camps: those who think the Scots are utterly mad for killing the goose that laid the golden egg and those who think that Donald Trump will never share his magical goose with anyone.

Trump is promising much job creation. But let's face it, it will be service sector wages he'll be paying. No one is going to get rich from this except, well, you finish that thought.

And, as some are asking, will golfers with deep pockets flock to the northeast of Scotland to play Trump's layouts? We're not talking balmy, Hawaiian ocean breezes or Arizona sunshine here.

It's a rock and a hard place. The bedrock of democracy is that the people's will carries the day but the people aren't always right. Which is why democracy is such an imperfect system of governing.

But it's the best system of governing in the end. I only hope the people and politicians of Aberdeenshire can live with the results of their actions. Because they'll have to for a long time to come.