Really, I know it could still snow, we could even ice skate again– that’s all happened in Aprils past, but it sure feels like spring, smells like spring, and looks like spring from the lawn at Lookout Memorial Park near the harbor. I sent my comment into the borough this morning after a relatively sleepless night. In summary, the harbor expansion is good, but do we need a three acre parking lot on the waterfront? Do we really need to fill this all in and surround the park pavilion and memorial with pavement? The only enduring asset Haines has is our scenery. Surely we can agree to find another place to park cars.
Also, I am dismayed that a town park, a memorial park for many fishermen no less, is apparently disposable without a public hearing. The names written in bronze on the monument in the park were friends, neighbors, family even– Ted Lynch– many were lost at sea, their bodies were never found, so there is no other grave marker. I assumed that it would always be there, didn’t you? Or that someone would at least ask the community if it’s okay to surround it with a parking lot? or move it? and to where?
The borough will take your comments on the harbor project and the parking lot until tomorrow. You can email them to jcozzi@haines.ak.us or write a note and drop it off at the borough office. In the meantime, you may want to take a walk down to the park and pay your respects while the weather holds.
Speaking of respect– the Blessing of the Fleet is 3:00 on Palm Sunday. It will be different this year, without a formal service or hymns or bells tolling the names of the dead. Instead, members of the ministerial association and others will divide up and walk down the floats in the harbor and say informal blessings over the boats. The public is invited. Tomorrow at noon, there is a Choose Respect festive kind of march down Main Street, to bring awareness to domestic violence, followed by a reception and speeches.
