March 28, 2012
To the Editor:

I appreciated Leslie Collins’ balanced article on Cliff Drive (March 21 NE News). I attended the most recent meeting of the Cliff Drive Management Committee on March 20. Although I’m still unsure who makes up the committee, I was impressed with the way neighbors were welcomed to the meeting and at the concern, even passion, for the integrity of our neighborhood. SRNA neighbors as well as Pendleton Heights representatives sat around the table.

However, I came into the meeting with qualms about the move to close Cliff Drive. I left with those worries still in tact. Here is why: 

•What is fundamentally wrong with “sharing the road?” It is a drive, after all, not a walking trail. What are the truly compelling reasons to close the drive even one more day? Please note that the committee quickly backed off their 5-day closing proposal when Parks made it clear that was ridiculous.

•Where did the closing idea originate? I felt I was witnessing a top-down process instead of a democratic bottom-up process. My husband, who was also at the meeting, quipped later: “We shouldn’t let the majority opinion get in our way if we have a purpose.” (Make that “re-purpose.”)

•Basic groundwork, legwork and documentation hadn’t been done. What we heard was mostly opinion and hearsay without hard facts laid out on the table… although the committee claimed there were hard facts out there.

•Who are the “misusers” we wish to keep out by closing the gates even one more day? People “misuse” Gladstone Boulevard where I live. Shall we close that, too? This smacks of exclusivity. Snobbery. As if we had a right to decide who “the wrong sort” were. 

Scarritt Renaissance, Pendleton Heights, Indian Mound, etc. are not gated communities (thank goodness), and closing the gates to Cliff Drive will not make them so.

Cate Morris