McIntyre development: Portsmouth and Redgate/Kane are bad marriage — Letters
Nov. 27 — To the Editor:
There is an old saying about choosing your business partner as carefully as you would choose your spouse. In the case of Redgate/Kane, we know that when there is a disagreement, the business partner has sued the city of Portsmouth. This does not bode well for a partnership that would last 75 years. Perhaps the partnership should be reconsidered.
The city's goals differ significantly from the developer's goals. The city wants a project that benefits the citizens and has some public purpose. The developer wants to maximize its profits, in part by overdeveloping the space and adding more buildings. These differing goals put the project in jeopardy, as the goals may be irreconcilable.
More: 'Might as well cancel Christmas': Firing Redgate/Kane complicates McIntyre project
In examining the present proposal by Redgate/Kane, the McIntyre property would be developed to the extent that the back side of the property (facing Bow Street) would not leave any vehicle access to the building. Without access to the back side of the property, the Post Office would not be able to return to Daniel Street. The lack of a downtown post office is a significant loss to the citizens and to downtown business owners. A new developer could plan for the return of the post office.
More: The ugly McIntyre building — let it rot! — Letters
The city can ask for new bids on the project and choose a new development partner wherein the developer has goals that are compatible with the city's goals. There was an interesting proposal that the city has yet to explore from a developer who would construct the project without making a profit.
It is more important to do this project correctly, i.e. make the McIntyre building a worthwhile project, rather than to finish the project quickly. This building will be here for many years to come and will be part of Portsmouth history, for better or for worse.
Susan V. Denenberg
Portsmouth
Becksted 5 needs to accept the facts and move on
Nov. 24 — To the Editor,
Not content to accept loss in last month’s election and move on, the Becksted 5 and their acolytes have taken to these pages to propagate the idea that they only lost because of a dastardly campaign financed by millions in dark developer dollars to paint them as Trump Republicans.
The accusation is not only an insult to the intelligence of Portsmouth voters, but is also incredibly ironic given that there are few things more Trumpian than questioning the legitimacy of lost elections. The fact is that the Becksted 5 did far more in their campaigns and governing to associate themselves with Trump than any phony website ever could.
More: Esther Kennedy: I’m proud to be a part of Portsmouth's Becksted Five!
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Consider the slogan “The future is now!” That statement only makes sense to someone who is living in the past. The Becksted 5’s goal seemed to be to return Portsmouth to some mythical past before it was ruined by outsiders with their big-city high falutin' ideas. You know, make Portsmouth great again. Which is why their campaign literature featured pictures of the new West End Yards warning ominously that this would be Portsmouth’s future if they weren’t reelected. I’m honestly quite confused why anyone is nostalgic about the Frank Jones Convention Center and surrounding parking lot, but more importantly: maybe treating hundreds of new residents (and voters) as a cancer isn’t the smartest campaign strategy?
The Trump comparison easily extends from campaigning to governing: the eschewing of experts and professionals in favor of “common sense” solutions, the replacement of facts and data with anecdotes and opinion, the lack of transparency, the dismissal of green solutions to environmental problems (such as bikes and bag bans), bullying, and of course, a complete and glaring disregard for ethics.
The smart and well-informed people of Portsmouth have spoken. The candidates (especially the incumbents) had ample time and space to make their case. No Russian troll farm can be blamed for unfairly swaying the vote— at least not by the decisive margin by which the Becksted 5 lost. So let’s knock it off with trying to rewrite history. Just accept the facts and move on.
Jonathan Sandberg
Portsmouth
Judging historic figures by today's standards and values is misguided
Nov. 24 — To the Editor:
Although I am generally sympathetic to Robert Azzi's extravagant passion for exposing the historic racism of America, I think he often goes a little too far in his efforts to cite examples of racist behavior in popular personages of the past. His recent column, "Branding New Hampshire educators with a scarlet E," suffers from such extravagance in criticizing one of our ancestors, namely, Francis Scott Key, the author of the "Star-Spangled Banner."
More: Azzi: Branding New Hampshire educators with a scarlet ‘E’
We must remember that Americans in the eighteenth and nineteenth century - especially those in slave-holding states and territories - were habituated to a culture where slavery was taken for granted, a culture passed down from generation to generation. They knew nothing else. So the question is: To what extent should we censure those otherwise stellar individuals in history who acquiesced in the dark side of their cultural heritage?
As a young lad born and raised in Richmond (the capital of the South), I can remember sitting on a city bus one day wondering why African-Americans always sat at the rear of the bus. As a kid it did not strike me as somehow wrong or racist (but of course it was). Nor did Richmond's celebration of its Civil War Centennial Memorial in the 1960s strike me as somehow inappropriate. Nor did I recognize the oppressive symbolism of the grand statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson that stood so imposingly magnificent on Richmond's Monument Avenue. Nor did I question the naming of the nearby Robert E. Lee bridge that spanned the James River, on whose waters I spent many years of my youth engaged in adventures that rivaled those of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn.
In fact, I lived in the very shadow of the Civil War amid the celebration, if not the deification, of its Confederate heroes and really thought nothing about it in terms of right or wrong. Surely my racial insensitivity or ambivalence - as opposed to outright racial animosity - was common in our predecessors, especially in areas where slavery was the norm.
So to disparage Francis Scott Key as a racist based on a vague passage in "The Star-Spangled Banner" is really stretching it. Mr. Azzi strains to label as racist the song's obscure lyric, "No refuge could save the hireling and slave from the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave" and he says that American children should be made aware of this racism.
However, a little research reveals that the meaning or intent of this passage in the song is indeed uncertain. It is possible, even likely, that it was simply referring to the mercenaries and escaped slaves who helped the British during the War of 1812 and that the wording was merely a rhetorical style common in the early nineteenth century.
Let's stop denigrating otherwise great people and their accomplishments for the purposes of political or cultural correctness. The road to racial harmony is inherently a difficult and bumpy one, but it does not need to be paved with the nitpicking of our ancestors' behavior in a way that blames them for not living up to our modern standards.
Slavery and racism are horrible evils that were advocated and sustained by many immoral, profit-seeking actors in the history of our nation and, yes, even tolerated and ignored by the Founding Fathers. The institution of slavery was a huge mistake that led us into a great civil war that left half our nation in ashes, ashes which are still smoldering today. It is certainly necessary that our children be taught about this great mistake in an unbiased, factually correct way.
Truth is all-important in the education of our children, but micro analyzing the base motives and hypocrisies of our ancestors is a dubious endeavor that likely gets us nowhere. We should direct our efforts and criticisms against the lingering racism of the twenty-first century rather than that of the distant past.
Ron Sheppe
Rochester
Fact: Portsmouth desired change in recent election and that's what we got
Nov. 24 — To the Editor:
Herald readers got a special gift just prior to Thanksgiving from Sue Polidura’s triple dog-whistle LTE. She bemoans the recent City Council election with tales about chicanery (Truth: It was a fair election, no proof of fraud), says “people all over town are talking about it” (Maximum use of false hyperbole - straight out of the GOP Leadership playbook) and criticizes the Herald for not publishing the Becksted Five’s post-mortem viewpoints, which of course they have done. (Criticize-delegitimize the media).
Sue, your team lost. I know it’s hard to accept, but it is what it is. In fact, Byron Matto got more votes than our current mayor and he didn’t even make it into the top 9. The city overwhelmingly desired change, and that is what we got.
Jay Lieberman
Portsmouth
This article originally appeared on Portsmouth Herald: McIntyre site: Portsmouth and Redgate/Kane are bad marriage — Letters
