Dear Watertown Residents:
Have I written enough about the April 6th meeting at the library? Perhaps, but when has that ever stopped me before??
I received a comment to my last Op-Ed entitled “Calling All Everyday Citizen Heroes for the Watertown Square Meeting.”
See:
A reader responded:
“Of all the components of the MBTA Act/Watertown rezoning issue, the urge of some to protect a parking lot and to view construction of a garage as a threat to our way of life makes no sense to me. Building housing and parking in a central spot — and in a currently unattractive downtown area — is a good path forward. (I like Tresca’s by the way; hopefully, they can re-locate
to somewhere nearby — the ground floor of the new building going up where the post office was?)”
And here’s my response:
Hi,
I was prepared to write one of my signature long responses to your comment, but then I thought, you’ve cut to the heart of the matter. Why not respond in kind?
So here goes. We are aspiring to excellence in Watertown. “Aspiring” is the operative word, because we’re not perfect, but then nobody is.
With my latest “tome” what I was questioning, put basically, is the honesty of the process that our City Manager has been using in our city … is it truly an effort to get an accurate community response or is it to get the community response that he wants?
I was also questioning if this project is the answer to our problems in the Square, but since we haven’t been given the data needed in advance to evaluate that question (in disrespect to the people of Watertown), we are put at a very great disadvantage.
Our City Manager, George Proakis, then gets to propose his plan without any serious challenges from the residents. All he’ll get from HAW (Housing for All Watertown) and some of our City
Councilors, for instance, is a rubber stamp.
It’s up to the rest of us (the majority, by the way) to play devil’s advocate, to assure that this is truly the answer to Watertown’s “Watertown Square dilemma.”
See you at the meeting?
Linda Scott
Watertown Resident
Watertown Square Implementation Update, Monday, April 6th, 6 p.m. Watertown Public Library