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A Two-Way Street

I would like to respond to Judith Miller’s letter of Jan. 12 [“Unneccessary Division”], which laments the lack of respect accorded to supporters of the Shoreline Greenway Trail (SGT) movement by some of their neighbors, a lament that has been expressed by other supporters previously.

I will speak for myself, but perhaps I speak for others too. Respect is a two-way street, with or without sidewalks. The public conversation has progressed like a pair of parallel rails, each going in the opposite direction; an ongoing frustration.

I share the frustration of opponents to the SGT vision, which does not deserve the dignity of reference as a “plan.” I ask of the SGT movement: What is so unfathomable about the proposition of “No Plan, No Budget, No Pathway”? It doesn’t get simpler or more direct than that, but the SGT organizers appear to generally wave that aside with thinly veiled and unspoken contempt, as they proceed in their passive-aggressive manner to insist, ever so gently but firmly, that SGT is for the public good, and it will benefit so many. Even if this could be true, and I doubt that it would be, “NP-NB-NP” is still a fundamental requirement of accountability that should not be ignored, no matter how noble the cause.

Too many noble plans have failed before for lack of basic facts and logic and common sense. Why should we accept another on some group’s home-grown vision alone? Yet the SGT movement seems not to grasp the frustration, fermenting to anger, from people who do not receive mutual respect and who, even when presenting in greater numbers in a peaceful forum, fear that their concerns will be ignored for the benefit of the few, as happens too often.

Give us a plan and a budget. Then we can talk. Hopefully, with mutual respect.

Sid Gale

Guilford