Leters to the Editor 10-10-13

Acorns and politics
Editor: Politically, this has been a very painful week for me and I expect for you. I feel powerless to influence the destructive games at play in Washington, D.C. and other places. And again, I suspect you feel the same way. Are we, as some columnists suggest, entering into a plutocracy of wealth and greed?  I don’t know. What I do know is I live in a well-off, semi-liberal, county where, nonetheless, one out of six people go to bed hungry. That is 78,000 people of whom 34,000 are children, 11,300 are seniors, 13,500 are working families. Wherever you live the situation is probably much the same. It is not right. So, on Friday I will be in our food pantry, trying to help, in a small way, those who are lending a hand.
Friday is the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi (1181-1226) who urged people to walk the Gospel way by living without material attachments and loving other people. What was this guy? Some kind of socialist? Well he liked animals. Some affluent Churches celebrate the day of St. Francis by bringing in exotic pets to be blessed. A few, not so affluent, churches bring in poor people to be fed.
OK, you get the drift. I was not in a very smiley place as the week progressed. And then one of those birds Francis loved dropped an acorn in front of me! Literally out of the blue an acorn fell in front of me as I was walking to the place where I write. Somewhat stunned, I was staring at it when a California Jay swooped down, picked it up, and flew away. In the quote above, Tagore talks about missing the dewdrops outside his door. For me it was an acorn. What are you missing outside of your door?
Never is it more important to be mindful of those dewdrops than when our society or our personal lives are in chaos. It is sometimes hard to believe but ideological extremism, be it left or right, never endures. The dewdrops do.
Twenty-two-year-old university student Sophie Scholl was beheaded in 1943 for non-violent opposition to Nazi totalitarianism, especially persecution of the Jews and euthanasia programs of the disabled. She wrote once: “Even when you’re sure everything is falling to pieces, the moon is always right back in its usual place the next evening; the birds are still singing the next day as sweetly and eagerly as ever. And whether or not their singing is of any use, they never give that a thought.”
There are some incredibly disappointing things happening on this planet these days. But this is also one of the most beautiful months of the year. It is very important to open the door and also be aware of the dewdrops, the moon, the birds, the falling leaves — the acorn that drops at your feet.
Tolbert McCarroll “Brother Toby”
Starcross Community, Annapolis
Forestville update
EDITOR: My staff and I have fielded hundreds of messages and phone calls with various perspectives on the proposal for an open space park in downtown Forestville.
As many of you know, the matching grant was scheduled to come to the SCAPOSD Board of Directors for the District in late June. One of the most critical requirements for this District program is that projects have broad community support. In fact, the threshold for broad community support for matching grant projects is generally high.
The Forestville Planning Association (FPA) worked diligently to secure both matching funds and community support for their project. However, in the weeks leading up to the June hearing both the District and my office received many e-mails expressing opposition to the project in its proposed form. The community outcry resulted in the District tabling the proposal so that FPA could sit down with the newly formed Forestville Locals Alliance (FLA) in an attempt to find a compromise that would address issues raised.
Many weeks and many meetings later, FPA and the FLA have reached an agreement. The revised project will bring some of the property into permanent conservation creating an open space park and protection for the wetlands, provide space for a future Forestville Town Square, and Highway 116 frontage will remain dedicated to mixed use commercial and residential opportunities. This would not have been possible without the willingness of local Forestville community leaders to work together, and a local family who came through to partner with FPA on the commercial portion of the property purchase.
While this process has been stressful and, at times, acrimonious, it is also a great example of democracy in action. People put in the time needed to work through concerns and issues, and the end result is a project that should receive broad community support. I look forward to bringing this project to our Board for consideration on Oct. 22.
 
Efren Carrillo
 Supervisor, Fifth District