For three years, we have pushed the City to clean up the Community Maritime Park site and consider making it available to the public. We were told that the land had environmental issues, but our suspicions were that the real issue may have been the homeless colony living on the property. For years, City officials have watched from the City Hall windows people living in the bushes across Main Street. Nothing was done about it.
There was a failed effort in 2008 by the Friends of the Community Maritime Park to clean up the property, but it could never get the proper insurance to cover the effort.
Now when we need to begin construction, the homeless become an issue. Why did the City allow the property become a homeless settlement and not a public park?
If the property is too hazardous for a public park, then isn’t too hazardous for the homeless?