Mark Levine has emerged as one of Mayor Alan Cohen's foot soldiers in the supposed "silent majority" supporting construction of a huge shopping center directly across from Buttermilk Falls State Park (Ithaca Times, 10/3/01). Levine's comments before Ithaca's Planning and Development Board on September 25 are both ignorant and offensive. I do not recall seeing Levine at any of the numerous prior meetings on the proposed Widewaters' development.
Nonetheless, this latecomer to local development issues has no compunction warning the board not to allow the actions of Islamic terrorists to color our perception of all Muslims or to "mistake the feelings and beliefs of a small band (of development opponents), no matter how zealous and outspoken, for the feelings and beliefs of a majority of city residents."
Levine's retread McCarthyism is based on his claim that Ithaca's voters elected pro-development candidates in recent elections. Let's take a look at this "mandate." Cohen ran for reelection throughout 1999, yet this dishonest politician never once mentioned to voters the crown jewel of his development plans at Buttermilk Falls during the campaign. Meanwhile the illegal Widewaters' fill permit moved quietly through City Hall with Cohen's full knowledge. The developer broke ground nine days after the election, lawlessly removing trees and a stately old hedgerow from city property. This ruthlessness shocked and outraged many local residents, including Cohen-voters who still believe in open government and the rule of city and state environmental laws.
Levine reaches the abyss of ignorance when he whines that city officials have, "bent so far backwards in a doomed effort to placate the prejudices of the few, that they have lost sight of the wishes of the many." This is rubbish. City Hall arrogantly ignored the input of Ithaca citizens for more than a year, until last February when Common Council's house-of-cards crashed to earth following a successful citizens' lawsuit that has caused Cohen's Planning and Development Board to finally respect the law by initiating a new round of hearings and review.
This and other legal blunders of the Cohen administration - including the unjust firing of former Building Commissioner Rick Eckstrom, who stood in the way of the Widewaters' development - have cost this city's taxpayers well more than a million dollars. Good "developments" cannot arise from lawless, costly and stupid beginnings. Unlike Levine and the non-existent "silent majority," I believe most Ithacans have more sense than to support construction of an ugly shopping mall directly across the road from Buttermilk Falls, one of this country's splendid natural wonders.
To paraphrase anti-development activist Tony Ingraham, let's not plunk a Big Mac sticker on the Mona Lisa's nose, for the sake of "shopping." There are other locations, near the current K-Mart, far more appropriate for big-box retail stores in Ithaca.
John Milich
Ithaca
