Protecting Our Own Is Our Civic Duty

To the editor: Finance Committee chair Denise Kroneau has personally addressed the Select Board. She is in disagreement with the decision of the majority of the Finance Committee to give a positive recommendation to going ahead with building a new facility for Our Island Home. Her grounds are fiscal responsibility, and she characterizes support for the project as emotional.

This is by no means the first time “emotional” has been deployed as the opposite of “responsible.” Patriotism—the willingness to sacrifice for one’s country—is as emotional as anyone can get, and nobody is discrediting patriotism. On the local level, in view of the recent near-fatal accident on that road, a Tom Nevers bike path is understood to be crucial to public safety and long overdue. I have yet to hear anyone come out against that project on the grounds that it is emotional. Protection—both of the young and fit and of the fragile and elderly—is a civic duty.

Frances Karttunen