Every day on my morning walk I pass red signs saying “Vote YES On Question 1.” This is evidently a very well-financed campaign. For the first time more recently, I saw a blue sign, “Vote NO on Question 1.”
There is a lot of misinformation being published, but as I wrote my first draft of this letter and put it aside for a day to reconsider, I saw today two letters for the “vote NO” position that clearly stated my thoughts. So I skipped the repeats and decided to give my unique perspective.
Something the daughter of my cousin said came to mind. After her mother died 20 years ago, her father remarried within a year: Apparently some people thought it was too soon. She responded, “It’s not a choice between her and my mother — it’s a choice between her and nobody.”
The lot is not currently a parking lot, and as I understand it, there is no plan to repave it and make it a parking lot. Neither would a “No” vote prevent the City Council from deciding to restore it to a parking lot. It would simply give them (as representatives of the voters) the option to solicit proposals from prospective developers for other possibilities, which they cannot do without their decision to declare the lot surplus. The “Yes” vote is to overturn that decision, nothing more.
Let me repeat that. If “Yes” proponents really want a parking lot there, nothing would prevent them from asking the council to pave the lot and restore it to its former use. If they don’t fund it, then it would just remain an empty lot — no use to anyone.
That is the choice: no options if you vote “Yes” or other possibilities if you vote “No.”
Judith Truesdell
Greenfield