MidlandToday welcomes letters to the editor [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following is in response to a column that ran Wednesday, Oct. 19 entitled Midland election comes down to vote over MBL's future.
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Dear Editor,
I have watched the flurry of letters addressing the issue of Midland Bay Landing and feel the need to make several observations.
First, this is one of Midland's big successes supporting sustainable development on the site.
We recall the problems with previous developers. Now we have one of the very best in Georgian Communities and they are local. The reason for founding a town-owned corporation was to remove it from political interference and deep misinformation regarding the process.
Simply put, the buyer needs the due diligence period to determine, through very costly engineering studies, if they can move forward.
So far, the opposition to the approved development, by a majority on council, have not provided any sound alternative. All we hear from their camp is rhetoric without substance or solutions. No sound alternatives are being presented.
Any real estate professional will confirm you cannot reveal terms and conditions during the due diligence or conditional period.
In addition, the claim presented by the candidates for change maintain that there are numerous projects either in limbo or halted. I urge anyone to examine the status of the Wendy’s, Starbucks, Firehouse Subs, and the so-called “stalled developments” and confirm these statements are not true.
In addition, to read this quote, “We are seen as inflexible, obstructive and unable to manage projects or work with developers fairly,” referring to the Town of Midland planning department beggars belief.
A candidate for the office of mayor is essentially a steward of the town corporation and must balance the needs of the community as well as those private corporations who seek to develop parts of the town.
One must consider that these corporations are competing against one another for limited assets and may be pleased to see that a town-owned corporation fails, while their developments, which call for a thousand condos, succeeds.
Prudent stewardship balances these conflicting outcomes and does not seek to divide one against the other, but uses diplomacy, skillful communication and provides hope, not hatred and animosity. One cannot hope to rule the peace by force of arms.
René Hackstetter
