By Dennis Delaney

To the Editor:

I write to comment on the proposed Charlotte Community Center and feasibility study. I’m not opposed. I know too little for that, or to be supportive.

In the center committee’s recent letter to The Charlotte News (Feb. 10), I do not find the word “need.” Is this facility needed, and if so, please be specifically clear to justify. If the proposal doesn’t justify “need,” then say so. It’s OK. More is won by honesty than by a bunch of cushy adjectives. Maybe we Charlotters just want a nice facility.

Another omission — glaring for me — is the word “tax.” That monosyllable is as blunt as they come, and universally understood. Is this how we pay, all or in part, for the community center?

In the question of affordability, let’s imagine that we find wealthy donors to pay for the construction of the center. We’d think we were home free. Wrong. The maintenance, and I don’t mean sweeping floors, will be great and will grow over the many years. Spell it out and you might earn solid support for the center and because of your honesty.

Dennis Delaney
Charlotte

(Delaney, a Charlotte resident since 1973, is a former member of the Regional Planning Commission, the Charlotte Selectboard and a five-term Vermont state senator.)