Working For Change
Like many others on the island we love the place we live. We view the sand spit and the fishing pier as assets to our lives.
I live less than a thousand feet from the boat launch. We call it the boat launch, but that’s a stretch. One thing it definitely is, is a nuisance for the people who live near it. Often the meeting place for drunk teens and twenties, car racing, motorcycle racing, egging and paintballing cars driving by, it is not an asset. It is the boat launch that most of the people here use, if they can get to it through the drunk teenagers.
When PenMet Parks notified us of their decision to remove the resident hosts at two of their properties on the island, I was appalled. The hosts were valuable assets, in making the properties family-friendly, and well maintained.
I wrote several letters asking questions as to why this was being done. The responses all centered around “this is what we are doing because we can do it”, and “we do not have to explain”. Upon asking several questions about expenditures, I was told that if I wanted information I would have to submit a public records request. It was clear to me that the PenMet administration was not acting in our best interests nor in a transparent fashion.
When it was revealed that PenMet parks is taxing us a million dollars a year and treating us like underlings, several of us realized that we needed to work for change. It’s clear that PenMet Parks is not interested in answering taxpayers questions or meeting with taxpayers or even explaining what’s going on.
Sincerely,
Working for change,
AP Templet