To the editor:

Scare tactics are now being brought to the table with regard to the proposed Fort rezoning.

In an apparent move to garner support from the rest of the city, our mayor has now taken to placing the idea in people's heads that if the Birds Eye (Good Harbor Fillet) building on Commercial Street is not developed into a hotel site, it will become a mirror image of one of the city's biggest hot button topics, the I4, C2 site, invoking a four-letter word in the world that is Gloucester's waterfront.

This idea is not founded in reality. If anything, the current zoning proposal could serve to make this property even more difficult to develop into something productive, particularly in the current financial climate. The site has been marketed by its broker as a "hotel development opportunity." You can look it up on the Web, it's right there for anyone to read. The same advertisement contains text stating that the city is working on zoning rules that would allow hotels in the MI zone. The site is correspondingly priced with these statements.

It does not seem to be a particularly taxing mental exercise for anyone to wonder why it has not been purchased. If anything, the city is not helping to move the sale along, as it has one price as a Marine Industrial development opportunity, and a very different one as a condo/hotel opportunity.

Statements are being made that we need to "revitalize" our harbor. But hotel, retail, and further residential development could serve to de-vitalize our harbor. Currently we are a supplier of a consumer staple: fish. People have to eat regardless of the state of the economy, which makes us vital. If we allow the waterfront to be given up to condo and retail development opportunities, it will no longer be vital.

The city needs to focus on making the Designated Port Area work, and keeping our port vital to the state, the country, and perhaps even the world. Economic prosperity will follow.

Others have taken to one-dimensional analysis of property tax revenues on the waterfront, and comparing them to the much-argued Sam Park TIF. This comparison is not fair or weighted appropriately. The waterfront of Gloucester is industrial; it has been for many years. Industrial property should not be valued for its property tax income, but for its ability to support jobs, and bring money to the local economy. People working buy houses and pay taxes — and they spend money locally. The money swims around the local economy, perhaps six times.

This is critical, it makes our harbor vital, and we need a position in local government to stir this activity; someone to work for the working waterfront and to represent Gloucester in pursuing assistance with this at all levels. Help keep the ice company going, build transient vessel dockage, and develop solutions for water filtration from fish cutting plants— all things that are recommended by the Harbor Plan.

Gloucester has an opportunity to take "market share" in the commercial fishing business. It is being said that quotas will rise dramatically in 2014. Let's take that date and work to make our harbor attractive so that vessels will come here, land fish, buy fuel, and support our economy- whether or not people have free cash- because they always have to eat!

I would also ask my fellow residents of the City of Gloucester to consider the mayor's words: "If I had started in the neighborhood ... we may never have gotten out." This implies that she does not care about our concerns or opinions. She appears willing to sell out parts of our city in the name of tax base expansion. Will your neighborhood be next? Will your neighborhood be labeled as blighted, dilapidated, or undesirable, and lined up for re-organization based on some contracted agency's idea of pretty?

This process has caused me to become interested. I have now taken to reading the past harbor plans, researching the issues for myself, and acting on them to the best of my abilities. I have also learned some important lessons, like speak to your neighbors, and help them when they ask — at least hear them out. Nothing is as demoralizing as approaching someone you think will help you, only to have them tell you they are not affected and have no interest. I took that position last year when my neighbors on Beach Court were concerned about the brewery at their doors and I regret it terribly.

Consider how little sense a 6- to 10-story hotel tower on Commercial Street makes. Consider the successful businesses on Commercial Street that would be affected, and the jobs generated by them. Consider what it would feel like to have proposals drawn up of your re-invented neighborhood that show something else in the place of the home that your family has inhabited for generations.

Think of the Fort at Fiesta — love the Fort, hold the Fort, help the Fort.

Bill Johnson

Fort Square, Gloucester