Not that I'm complaining

I was sort of surprised that a Tot Lot made it onto the latest version of the NRA's plans--or not plans--for the Waterfront.

I recalled during the October meeting the idea for a playground got very little support.

The power of Newburyport Posts could be felt as only one person--that would be me--voted for a playgrounds. Meanwhile, a farmer's market didn't even make it onto the ballot. (My fault there, I didn't offer it up during the meeting.)

The drawings looking attractive enough. I'm not at all sold on the notion that an ice skating rink will draw people down to the Waterfront. I'm still holding out for the Shanley Plan. But I acknowledge the odds of that happening are bleak.

For once, Erford Fowler summed up our thoughts pretty succinctly.

First with this...

"I think it looks great on paper," said Erford Fowler, a member of the NRA.

And then with this...

"You know what I'm starting to get really nervous about," he said at the meeting, "is how the hell are we going to pay for this?"

Buying Local

I'm catching up on my Daily News articles, so bear with me.

Interesting move by the folks at Iron Moon Farm. We definitely plan on buying into one of these share programs this summer. As the article states, it sounds like a great way to get fresh produce while benefiting folks and farms you can actually see.

But this talk of local farms got me thinking--why don't we have a Farmer's Market in town.

I know there was talk of this last summer, but it seemed to die on the vine. I know one City Councilor questioned whether such an event would compete against in-city business--I think the new Woodman Stand was the one in question. I have to admit, I still don't get the rationale.

How great would it be to have all the area farms congregate their goods a few hours every Saturday? This not only would be an event to draw people downtown, but it would also serve as free marketing for those farms, particularly if the market were held at the Mall. I see stands like Tendercrop and Woodman's benefiting from such an event.

I recall this idea getting dismissed as something yuppie dream. Fine, we get resort to name calling I suppose. But for the life of me I don't see a single good reason for it not to happen, other than it hasn't been done before.

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Revenue Task Force

I came out to bury the Revenue Task Force, not to praise it.

Well, not bury it. I was just a bit underwhelmed by the principal conclusions of the task force that have been in the papers.

* Override/debt exclusion
* Sell city property
* Convince employees to join the state-sponsored health care program
* Dip into the state's rainy day fund.

Each suggestion is reasonable, but I didn't think we needed a three-month study to come up with them. So I was left underwhelmed although I appreciated the work that went into coming up with those rather obvious solutions.

But even though I never wrote that post I take it all back. Why? I actually read the actual report. Fascinating stuff. Very thorough. Very interesting.

I'll say right now newspaper reports don't do the actual report justice. There's much to think about, talk about and act on in those 55 pages.

This should be read.

I'm going to do my best to offer some insights on the report in upcoming posts.