What goes around...

After the selectmen's meeting Monday night, I spoke with a few folks outside town hall about the situation with 419 Woods Hole Road, a.k.a. Webster Woods. By and large, these were folks who don't want to see affordable housing built there.

During the meeting and after, I thought their arguments and concerns against building were reasonable and had some merit. However, one individual made a statement that stunned me. They said, "If this is done, it will drive a wedge between the people of Falmouth."

Say what?

Earlier in the evening, Selectman Kevin Murphy had briefly drawn parallels between Webster Woods and the cranberry bog issue, but I was not about to mix my controversial issues. This time, however, I had to point out the obvious - that a wedge had been driven long ago over the cranberry bog issue.

It was almost as if this person had not heard the words of Mark Finneran, the Teaticket resident with the now infamous banner "Town hall needs an enema" strung across his front porch. During the discussion about 419 Woods Hole Road vs. Oshman Way, Mr. Finneran openly stated what so many residents of the 02536 zip code have quietly mumbled for years...that Woods Hole "bullet votes", controls town hall to the detriment of the other villages, unites around issues and candidates, etc...

While I understand Mr. Finneran's frustration, if Woods Hole - or any village within our 44 square miles - is that powerful, it is only because they have, as Mr. Finneran himself noted, been better organized than other parts of town.

That said; to suggest that a wedge will be driven over Webster Woods - as though one never existed before - reveals an astounding degree of ignorance.

Mind you...I don't mean to be insulting here. I use the term ignorance because of it's dictionary definition, "The condition of being uneducated, unaware, or uninformed." Clearly, this person has no idea how the residents of East Falmouth felt when a group of individuals - largely from Woods Hole - led the fight to close the town owned Coonamessett River cranberry bogs.

The wedge is already there, and many residents of the 02536 zip code have no sympathy for Woods Hole. Mr. Finneran made that very clear, but apparently some folks weren't listening.

When I was campaigning for selectman back in the spring, I did a lot of door-to-door around town, including Woods Hole. One person who lived not far from former selectman Catherine Bumpus told me that, "Webster Woods is our cranberry bogs."

It's an ironic parallel, and I have to wonder if some residents of Woods Hole are not now regretting their efforts to close the Coonamessett River cranberry bogs.