No need to rush

I hope the Cathlamet Town Council won't rush into a decision to locate a food bank building in Erickson Park.

There is no doubt food banks are needed. With the decline on governmental spending on social services, volunteer organizations have a steadily growing demand for food. They need good, secure facilities to store and distribute food, and the Helping Hands Food Bank doesn't have that.

While I like the idea that municipal government, or county or school district, might have land for food a bank, I'm not sure the park is the best idea.

I've only had a presence in Cathlamet since 1963, and I can remember how the park was then, basically a parking lot and clearing snuggled in a forest of old growth trees. The town has opened ground and added facilities since then, but it's still a place one can go and feel a bit out in nature.

Putting a building in there would change that.

Change is slowly happening on Columbia Street. I think it's one of the most beautiful streets I've ever seen with trees and houses on one side and a fabulous view on the other. That view is going to disappear. Those who have will purchase the empty lots and build houses, and those who don't have will lose that view. In the same way, putting a building of any sort in the green space of the park will diminish that green space.

To me, the question is whether or not having a building in the park will enhance the park. That may involve considering what people want in a park--green space, play equipment, buildings or whatever.

Jim Reed commented at Tuesday's meeting that we, or at least the people of the town, hold the property in trust for future generations.

The council needs to consider that trust before it makes a decision. There's no rush; this isn't a time for the town's leaders to pick a decision on where they want to go and lead the rest of us there whether or not we support the decision.