To the Editor,

Going to Gambino’s with my wife one day, I mentioned to her about all the two- and three-story buildings in downtown Marion that were built in the late 1800s and were occupied from top to bottom. It reminded me of growing up in the 1940s, when every few miles there was a country school. I went to Lehigh High School and played basketball in a league made up of Durham, Tampa, Ramona, Lost Springs, Lincolnville, and Goessel.

Except for Goessel, where are they now? We were many small, independent communities with real moral and social values. Did these small communities thrive because of government involvement? Didn’t it use them to build itself up?

So now, our county commissioners, city officials, and civic leaders are talking revitalization. How do they solve the problem if they won’t ask why it is a problem? Maybe they know, and maybe we all know. Is the answer more government involvement? What did we lose when government co-opted our basic right of self-government?

Was the Thursday evening meeting a cover? Instead of asking, “What’s the solution?” why not acknowledge, “We are the problem.” Is our situation today because government has become less intrusive or more intrusive? Something to ponder.

Jerry Plett
Lincolnville