Our response to Brian McCrone’s shoddy piece about the Cedar Street purchase:
Brian,
I write this with some reluctance, but as a creative professional, I believe that feedback is an important part of our professions.
You should know that I’ve been the subject of stories published in the New York Times, The Boston Globe, the Wall Street Journal, Yankee Magazine, the NY Daily News, and many other papers, and I’ve appeared on the Food Network, the Discovery Channel, Channel 5 in Boston, as well as NPR — on some of these outlets more than a few times. So, I have some experience dealing with reporters and their agendas.
Simply put, your piece on Cedar Street was — to be diplomatic — disappointing. You said in our interview something about your sense of journalistic skepticism, and yet I saw none of that in your piece, which I can’t quite decide if it was actual reporting, an editorial, or a meandering thought piece.
I’m guessing that you don’t own your own home, and therefore do not have first-hand experience with the burdens that homeowners face in helping to finance the activities of our local government and school district. I make that assumption based on your snide closing line about the location of my house.
You should know that my wife and I own a house that is about 1500 square feet, and for the privilege of living here, we pay more than $7,000 per year in property taxes. To put that in perspective, if I had the same house in a similar community in my home state of Massachusetts, my house would be worth three times as much, and I’d be paying half the property tax.
If this strikes any chord with you, then you might better understand our objections to the Borough’s misadventures in park development.
Your article stated that the borough “saved” money with that purchase. It’s a common fallacy to think that you save money by spending it, especially when it is on something that no one wanted and that the Borough does not need.
If by any chance you are planning a follow up to your piece, I suggest you might sit and listen to those of us who are a little tired of watching our Borough government using slimy parliamentary maneuvers to further a hidden agenda.
In other words, apply that skepticism that you claim to have.
Sincerely,
Randy Garbin