Unnecessary Insults

To the Editor:

A few weeks ago, George Schmidt found it necessary to insult residents living on Main Street, Queen Street, and Glover Avenue. I addressed the workings of the borough, the historical preservation it has provided, the wonderful work of the scores of volunteers and examples of other downtown heritages lost [Letter Hive, May 30, “The Borough — Maintaining ‘A Prisine Early American Elegance’”]. His response [Letter Hive, June 6, “For Many Residents, The Borough Is Indeed Broken”] was another insult, this time against my family and me.

Mr Schmidt stated that the borough works for my family because I greedily receive a historical stipend as warden. If Mr Schmidt had bothered to stay longer than two minutes at the borough’s regular meeting, he could have asked me about the stipend and learned that the stipend works out to about $3 per hour. He would have also learned that the other historical stipends for work calculate out to less than that. Working for the borough is a labor of love, not one for profit. It would be an awful tough way to make money. Moreover, as reported previously in The Bee, my stipend was long ago pledged to Kevin’s Community Center. Yes Mr Schmidt…after taxes the stipend costs me money. My family and I have a long history of community service, and we are proud of it. Your insults are ugly. Further, the stipends to officials’ work do not total one third of the budget, but less than ten percent. I won’t bother to address some other misinformation as most of it is self-evident to those who have actual knowledge of the workings of the community.

There is no doubt that the borough preserves our historical heritage. Stepney (Route 25 Monroe) is yet another example. It was once a lovely historical area; now it’s strip malls and commercial hodgepodge. The comment “zoning is zoning” demonstrates a remarkable naiveté, so much that it resounds for another agenda, most likely the commercialization of the borough (except his street). How would it be if looking down from Castle Hill, in addition to the flagpole, and Meeting House and Trinity steeples the vista included a strip mall, seven-story office buildings, and line of condominiums? As a developer told me…if only the borough were gone, in five to ten years he’d get condos and commercial strip malls running from South Main Street to Mt Pleasant and Currituck, from Queen Street to The Boulevard, and down West Street and Sugar Street. This is an individual who knows zoning, like Jean St Jean, a longtime town and borough zoning and land use official. Zoning is given broad discretionary powers, including via amendment, deletion, and rezoning. There are numerous examples of past town zoning situations where “strict zoning” management was not enacted (no disrespect to the current town P&Z Commission that ardently supports the borough’s eminent domain proposal!) Borough zoning holds fast to strict micromanaged preservation and cautious commercialization. This is what is meant by “strict zoning.”

In the future I don’t intend to continue this discourse as Mr Schmidt appears to prefer personal attacks to accurate information.

Thanks to all volunteers.

                                             Jim Gaston

18 Main Street, Newtown                                                June 11, 2008