City of Madison Parks Commission Meeting
I emphatically and enthusiastically agree with the Madison Park Commission decision not to sell the half acre of city land beneath the Lincoln School apartments. I enthusiastically endorse the recent statement by the Commission’s chair which stated:
“We should not limit our options relating to land we own publicly or waver from our vision of greater access to city lakeshores, and adding open space in an increasingly dense urban area.”
When I first arrived in Dane County now almost 35 years ago, I was struck by two main impressions of the City of Madison. First, how richly blessed Madison was to lie in the midst of so many miles of beautiful lake shore land. Secondly, how sad and unjust, it seemed, that so many Madisonians had public access to so little of it.
My dream and vision for Madison is that when this city celebrates its bicentennial in 2056 its citizens can proudly boast that they reclaimed their natural right to greater public access to Madison’s lake shores. I know with out any doubt that if there was a referendum to this effect, the people of Madison would overwhelmingly support it. One way to help ensure that the citizens of Madison begin take back part of their shore line would be to measure the public’s existing shore line, and then publicly announce at our spring sesquicentennial celebration a goal to significantly increase public access to our lakes.
Martin Luther King, when talking about the need to change our values, said, “I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation (I would add here, ‘and as a city’) must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing-oriented” society to a “person-oriented” society. He then went on to say that when profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
Let us support “the people’s revolution” and say no to the further diminishment of the people’s access to this beautiful and enticing lake shore. Let us begin, as a city, to say no to the further privatization and degradation of our planet earth.
If we succeed, then we can triumphantly acclaim “our radiant city of Madison on the lakes,” and mean it!
William R. Benedict
Resident of Madison/Eastside
