ALocal(ButMaybeNot)Issue

running and getting nowhere

below a letter I wrote to the local paper 

as a member of the committee 

for the re-vitalisation of Vincent street

Dear Editor

in last week's paper, one of the wannabe councillors mentioned the need 
for 'a greater recognition for the key stake holders' 
in the streetscape debate. 

Who, I wonder, are these key stake holders? 
Are they the same people, mentioned on the front page who, 
when councillor Barrell who did not agree with their point of view, 
asked him to leave a meeting.
 Are they the same people, running what is fast becoming 
a somewhat scary authoritarian outfit, who label fellow citizens 'the enemy'. 

Where is the community spirit and respect in that?

These 'key stake holders', which I assume are the members of the association, 
seems to conveniently have forgotten that 
the street is a 'PUBLIC DOMAIN'. 
This, in my vocabulary, means that the street belongs to the public. 
Belongs to all and sundry, 
which makes the same public the key stakeholders as far as I can see. 
We are all key stake holders.

It seems to me that the traders' part of any street ownership 
finishes at the front door of their shops. 
The fact that they are the beneficiaries of this 'public domain' 
doesn't mean that they can claim ownership of it 
and then labelling people who have some new and refreshing ideas
 for what is also their street, 
the enemy.

and for those who continuously undermine the process of change: 

                                'Reality is the invention of unimaginative people'