However, as a participant in the community sub-committee meeting of Nov.5, I have this to say – the game is rigged and we are mere props with the word ‘rubberstamp’ writ large.

Staff from the Department of Planning and Economic Development offered, what were essentially, three options. The first option, no development, was a non-starter, wasn’t discussed at all. (The ‘No development’ option is a purview that would require Parks or Heritage or other such organizations to be present. In other words, you see the world from where you sit) The other options were varying degrees of leaving very little space for anything but development.

One of the 14 (?) participants of the session pondered shooting himself (in jest) and another briefly discussed the option of a wellness theme for the development and one finely appointed lady voiced aloud that given her age and the time frame for the project that she was glad that she would not be around to see the results. And lastly, another commented to me, and I paraphrase. “A nice condo development on the Brow would assure that when I’m older, I can move from my home with all its labors, into one of the condos being built, and then as age progresses, into a old folks home, and finally into the ground.” And she could achieve all this without ever leaving her neighborhood.

Quickly on the heels of that ‘community sub-committee’ meeting of Nov.5 ( no insurrection there… just a group of amicable and very pleasant folk discussing the end of the BrowLands) another meeting on Nov13th is scheduled. This meeting, I would assume, is to put the communities imprimatur on the options that our group was so skillfully guided to adopt as our own.

I can only speak for myself, but this whole process is like taking part in vandalizing a priceless work of art…. But that’s just me…. and of course, it has been said, in many different ways, that one man’s priceless object of affection, is but another’s ‘underdeveloped resource.