To the Editor:
About 20 years ago, parents of our town, mostly mothers raised about $40,000 to purchase our town playground. We also built it. It is the nice one next to the old Plain School, now our Town Hall. We also raised money to place a 3-foot fence next to the 12-foot tennis court fence. The tennis fence was to keep players’ tennis balls out of Main Street. The 3-foot fence was to keep our children out of Main Street.
After the fence was installed, we heard that one of our selectman had instructed our town garage to pull up that fence — our 3-foot fence.
The mothers, the fathers and others of our town stood at the break of dawn, 5 a.m., at that fence awaiting our town garage. Chief Wilcox showed up, the TV stations from Albany showed up. The machinery arrived to pull up out fence. Our fence stayed and is still there….so is the tennis fence.
We were not scared of the selectmen; we were not afraid of our police officers; we were not fearful of our town garage folks. We were “our town,” the town was “us,” the people.
Well, there comes a time when we need to do what is right and a time to stand up for what we believe in. I think that is the time, again. We have another “fence issue.”
I am upset about a few things in our town.
I am upset about the personnel lawsuits we have now. If I were either of those folks, I would do the same thing. They need their jobs back. And we don’t know why they were either not given their job back or why they were removed from their job.
I am upset about the heightened police presence — the helicopter at Mercy Sunday, parking tickets for those Mercy Sunday folks and the No Parking signs that were installed every 20 feet along our Main Street.
I am upset that speeding ticketing in our town has gone up 44 percent. That does not make me proud. Is this what our Norman Rockwell town is to be known for? I’ve had other folks that drive through our town ask me what is going on? Does this mean that Chief Wilcox and our veteran officers (who are all gone from our town now) were not doing a sufficient job?
There comes a time when we need to do what is right.
Mary Hart
Stockbridge
