For many years, I supported locating a highway barn up at the north end. To transform something problematic, the dump, into something useful, a highway barn, seemed like a great idea to me. But this past year, I have changed my mind. Mixing the two issues of highway barn and dump closure, by locating a barn on the adjacent lot 47, imperils doing either properly or promptly. Lot 47 may be clean as a whistle, but how do you get to it? Everyone has assumed access through the dump, but the preliminary closure plan calls for a road of only occasional use. Will RIDEM approve entry to a highway barn as occasional use? Another part of the closure plan requires the discharge of runoff across North Main Road onto private property, requiring the approval of those property owners. It doesn't take deep pockets or a lawsuit for those folks to just say no.

The alternative access to Lot 47 is Summit Avenue, about a mile further north. Summit is a dirt road about 14-feet wide that will have to be widened and improved, the extent of which is not yet determined, the costs of which are not included in any highway barn proposal. With houses on either side, Summit is a residential neighborhood of families whose pockets are by no means as deep as their waterfront neighbors. Lot 47 is still zoned residential. Whether it was bought for the highway barn or as a buffer to the dump, we never bothered to change the zoning. It will take a lawsuit to change it now. If I lived on Summit, I'd fight to keep it residential.

In contrast, Freebody Drive, the road to the bridge site, is wider, already paved, and far less populated. I know there are concerns about this site's size and function, but I trust that Town Engineer Mike Gray would not endorse an inadequate facility. Of the structures located at Taylor Point, including the condos, sewer plant, Conanicut Marine's storage and the Bridge and Turnpike headquarters, the highway barn would be the most discreetly located. To my eye, despite the bridge and turnpike authority's remarkable landscaping and scrupulous maintenance, their blocks of brick and concrete pose the greatest impediments to our rural vista.

David Long probably laughed when his vote to support the bridge site was called courageous; I suspect he defines the word more carefully. He has confronted bigger concerns in his life than public opinion about the highway barn. In any decision, a town councilor must assess the facts and, as David has noted, with this new site, the facts changed. David chose to put the rancor of the past several years aside in supporting what he called "the better choice," of Taylor Point. His vote was an act of leadership, like many he has cast these past eight years. Please consider joining him by voting to approve the highway barn on Aug. 28.

Mary Meagher

Jamestown The author is a former Town Council member.