Welcome Baack

Glad to read the confirmation of a rumor in today's Globe. Cathy's Kitchen is coming north to take over Fowle's.

And the sign is staying.

Win-win.

Speaking as a patron to many downtown eateries and a semi-frequent visitor to Cathy's I offer this bit of advice ...

 Look hard at your coffee, make sure it measures up. It could make all the difference in the world.

Good luck.

Cathy's Kitchen at Fowle's

For a blogger, I actually don't hear many rumors. I hadn't heard this one until Friday, and by then it was supposedly "all over town."

Anyway, we're big fans of Cathy's and it would be make a great addition to the downtown.

I just hope Newburyport Development's plans call for keeping the iconic Fowle's sign, which gives our 18th/19th Century recreation a bit of legitimacy by layering on distinct 20th Century focal point.

Plus, we'd have to change all those post cards.

Blogify Wall Street

Noted editor and writer Katie Bolick puts Newburyport, her dad Doug, and Angie's on the map with an article in Saturday's Wall Street Journal.

BTW, Norma, if you're reading, DON'T BUY! RENT! 

Newburyport Today Column

My column today on Newburyport Today. I do hope we have a fair, rationale discourse over the LHD.  It's a huge issue, no doubt, and one that rightly elicits strong feelings from both sides..

Great Insights

Great blog post by Mary Baker today. Not pushing it as a Pro-LHD tome but rather something that presents  the resentment many folks still feel out there.

Unfortunately, the anger or resentment seems to be aimed at newbies like myself. But I did nothing to cause their pain so it's a bit misdirected.

Bottom line though, urban renewal destroyed as well as created. That's something that doesn't get a lot of play in blogs like this, and it should.

FYI - Open Space Meeting

In Other News...

the HMS Bounty might be coming to Newburyport in July.

First Sign of Spring

Haley's opens in eight weeks.

Thanks

Wow, 11-0. No questions from the city council or audience.

I'm honored.

Thank you all for your support.

Let's do this.

Common Ground

For someone who so easily opines on others, I have a difficult time writing about myself. Classic introvert stuff, I know, but I wasn't quite sure how to handle the developments of the past couple of weeks.

Let me rewind for a moment.

Mayor Donna Holaday honored me a few weeks ago by nominating me to the Newburyport Redevelopment Authority. The City Council still needs to give its thumbs up or down on the appointment, and tonight is the night when the so-called second reading occurs.

This is a new role for me in Newburyport. The blogging thing has been great, and I have no plans to stop. It's given me an opportunity to contribute to the city dialogue for the past four or five years even though I've never really had to get my hands dirty.

Voters thankfully left me off the Charter Review Commission, so I didn't need to attend their multitude of meetings. I'll help out with food drives, clean ups, and events at my son's school. But I haven't had a "full-time" volunteer job, not yet.

I hope that changes tonight.

I'm eager to help shape what happens down on the waterfront lots. I realize that I'm the hundreth or so person to utter such sentiments while accepting a post on the NRA. That much-maligned body has been working hard to make something happen for 40-plus years with no success on the waterfront lots.

But I feel this group and this Mayor is generating some genuine momentum. I just hope I can help.

I know this appointment will worry some. The P. Preservationist chimed in yesterday. To be honest, I was a bit surprised by two things: one, that it took this long for him to write such a column; and two, his sense of alarm that the final meeting was tonight. See, the P. Preservationist was at the first meeting two weeks ago, even wrote about my being there, so I assumed he would have heard me stand up before the council during public session to offer myself for questions as an appointee to the NRA. Perhaps he'd stepped out of the room at that point, and I mistook his silence for tacit approval.

But all that doesn't matter. I'm glad he posted, and I actually found his post encouraging, specifically this part.

If the citizens of Newburyport show clearly what they wish, then the NRA will have to re-shape if they want to proceed.      Some compromise would allow all parties to get what they want and the leaders of the NRA will be hailed as heroes! 

Not being a member of the NRA yet, I can only speak for myself. (I haven't even had the pleasure of meeting the other members, except for Chairman James Shanley.) But I truly believe compromise is a great idea. The gridlock on Capital Hill shows us what happens when hardened idealogues refuse to surrender a little in exchange for a lot. Frankly, I don't think that approach benefits us here.

If the council confirms my appointment tonight - or even if it doesn't -I believe we'll all find that there's a great deal of common ground along the Merrimack if we just started looking for it.

Fowle's

Nice write up by Joel Brown. Let's hope it isn't ultimately an obit.

Oh, and the Globe did a write up on the LHD.

Ah Bummer

Things looked pretty bleak in there when I grabbed my spicy tuna sandwich. Guess I know why.