City should leave park as it is | Letters | July 23

Published 11:11 am Friday, July 23, 2010

I visited Cannery Park after a City Council meeting last week. The light was exquisite, with a full tide. A four-person shell stood off the beach, reminding me of an Eakins image of a sculler. Soon, a bright red canoe glided past, presenting a scene reminiscent of a Winslow Homer watercolor.

If you haven’t seen it, please check it out.

My point is, this is an existing delightful waterfront park. The city has posted a plan for spending grant funds from the state, which funding was awarded based on an inaccurate classification of the beach and tidelands, and included the small creek on the east side that is no longer part of the plan.

Our council seems to want that grant money, and the waterfront park be damned.

The plan allows for a token kayak launching site far removed from the proposed limited parking area. The citizens of Bainbridge will be allowed to play on an upland four-acre site, which is buffered from the water.

I ask the Parks and Recreation District to refuse to take over this token park, and hope the John Nelson heirs will not attach his name to this plan, which I understand they are not happy with.

If this plan is what we get, I suggest that we place a bronze plaque at the entrance with the names of the sitting council members, and the following quote:

“Most people are on the world, not in it – have no conscious sympathy or relationship to anything about them – undiffused, separate, and rigidly alone like marbles of polished stone, touching but separate.”

– John Muir

Ted Hoppin

Bainbridge Island