This is a reply to what was posted as a Letter to the Editor on the Glen Park Association blog. It was written by Glen Park resident Stephen Labovsky, who gave his reasons for going before the Appeals Board to halt the removal of eucalyptus trees on Alms Road in order to enlarge the playground and relocate the tennis courts:
Steven is indeed, as a former advertising copy writer, a spinner of tales and just plain old spin. He can pick out this detail or that but the reality of the whole process was that those of us that did attend it all, was that the majority were in favor of what was proposed. At some meetings there were a few dissenters as there will always be but they never made their case. And importantly, their case was not made before the Board of Appeals on November 14th. At that hearing, the people that were against the stoppage of the project were mostly parents of young children. They wanted the new playground to be there for them. The decision to reject the stoppage was 4 to nothing.
A stoppage now would mean that the whole process pretty much starts over with a re-juggling of all the components. AND when that new process nears completion, again just one dissenting petition stops it. Again
The fixation this time is a few Eucalyptus trees at the beginning of Alms road. Out of how many of them in the park? Hundreds? Tens of hundreds? (There is in fact a debate about other trees in the park but this is not about that. This is another issue.) What will be the fixation be on a new go-around?
For some I think, the whole point IS the argument. And for them, the longer it or any argument for that matter goes on, the better. That’s why I hesitated
to get into this one and I don’t think I’ll continue any more with it.
Except one last comment: Mr. Labovsky presumes to fathom what my innermost thoughts are and presumes reluctance on my part to express them. He may rest assured that I was speaking for myself.
Michael Waldstein