A rant

I'm starting my own series of articles. I don't know how long the series will run but I am still so dismayed over yesterday's events that I can't let it go.

As regular readers know, I check the Daily News not only for the stories, but I also like to read the comments from readers. I realize that usually only the disgruntled or particularly passionate ever write letters to the editor or make on-line comments.

What gets me is how few people will reveal who they are. The only person I can recall seeing on there who wrote anything the least bit controversial and who used their real name was John Wells of RE/Max Innovations.

But before all this commenting started at the DN, I had heard enough about our city to make me believe that "Old Newburyport" would turn out en masse to the public meeting with Stephen Karp back in March. I expected shouting, finger pointing and perhaps an obscenity or two to echo through the auditorium at Nock Middle School.

What happened, of course, was that a small group of people stood up and made comments varying from outright giving Karp a boost (i.e., the former owner of 10 Center Street heaping compliments on him - I'm not saying Karp is not deserving of them; I've heard a lot of such compliments) to almost glee from people who obviously see development of Waterfront West as a personal cash cow.

"If you lived in Newburyport," one man asked, "what part of the plan would you be most excited about?"

C'mon, what was that, an exercise in PR?

And then there were the obnoxious comments from that Rush realtor woman about how Newburyport does not need more affordable housing - send the poor to Salisbury and Amesbury, she pretty much said. (Any condo development here has to include 10% affordable housing.)

I did not hear words such as, "Mr. Karp, go back to Newton and leave us alone."

But I've read plenty of "Rape of the Ridge," "The Desecrator," and "Johnny-come-Lately" - all from anonymous person(s). Most of the belligerent comments published in the Daily News come from 'Anonymous.' (The Ridge, by the way, is where all the fancy mansions are, on High Street. It's an actual ridge.)

It seems that when it comes time to actually stand up and face the "enemy" in person, Old Newburyport hasn't got the teeth. Well, actually, there are exceptions. I'll talk about Tom Jones and others in another post.

In a recent conversation with the alleged 'desecrator' and raper of The Ridge, Todd Fremont-Smith, he told me that his family - including his children - have suffered untold abuse because he had the "nerve" to buy land THAT WAS FOR SALE and build a modest development of homes on it. Yes, the nerve of the man.

The nerve of Ari Herzog to suggest that the city should go in a "green direction," and work for such changes after living here for only a few months; the nerve of him to post something about re-naming Newburyport as an intro to a commentary on Burma/Myanmar being referred to by both names.

It is shameful. And by the way, I did not see any fury about Kathleen O'Connor Ives being elected to the City Council after living here only a few months. And she's in a position of power. Seems the fury is selective.

I did not hear anyone stand up and call Stephen Karp a desecrator. I don't see any effigies of him being raised. I did not see Mr. X stand up and "give it to" Karp. I believe I saw him stand up and speak, though.

Jim Roy once wrote in his column for the Current (before he was thrown from the train) that it was not Old Newburyport that saved the downtown in the 70s from urban renewal - it was the newcomers.

Well, folks, this round of newcomers (with a few exceptions, like me) wants the city to be gentrified.

I wrote last year in a story for Merrimack Valley Magazine that it was going to be a "rumble" here, a fight between Old Newburyport and the Karp Mall Machine.

I was being naive; I see that now. (Plus, it made good copy.)

In fact, I believe Jim Roy's comment was probably in response to my having written that.