Viewpoints
Re: The Dock - Who Pays?
By Lynne Miller
September 22, 2005
Thursday PM
I do not understand the
rationale of any opening statement wherein we all acknowledge
dock expansion was voted down handily by the voice and mandate
of this community via its election process and yet we are all
supposed to accept now that the dock expansion issue will move
forward. What is it that a majority of the people in this community
saw and believed in, in regard to this issue that our city council
driven "minority" is now hell bent to ignore? It can't
be that the city council truly believes the MAJORITY of its citizens
to be so stupid and ill informed that they approve of elected
city council members paying for elections, advertising for public
participation in fair and equitable election processes and then
IGNORING every honor bound result of that same city council initiated
process. The gall, indeed of this "city" and its government
if that is the cold, hard fact at the end of the day.
In my home town of Portland,
Oregon that city, the business community, its election bound
city respesentatives as well as the public at large acted proactively
to turn blocks and blocks of public dock space on the Willamette
River into a vital, interactive city park named for Tom McCall,
a visionary and POSITIVE public leader. The concerts, picnics,
walking and biking paths, as well as the many diverse special
events that occur to benefit the community in ways quantified
not always by ECONOMICS are immeasurable - and greatly appreciated
by Portland's citizens as well as its many visitors annually.
What was once a commercialized, congested area of that city is
now "space" - open and viable and accessible to the
people, for the people. Maybe, for some of us, that is ALL the
rationale we need to vote "no" on port expansion and
to continue to vote "no" regardless of what "information"
is provided to us into infinity.
Lynne Miller
Ketchikan, AK - USA
Related Viewpoint:
 THE
DOCK; WHO PAYS? By Chris Schelb - Haines, AK - USA
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