Letters to the Editor
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More of Why The Shore Doesn’t Want Another Bridge
Dear Bay Weekly:
Thank you for Bill Burton’s concise and eloquent summation of what has happened to the Shore since the opening of the Bay Bridge [“A Bridge to Sprawl,” Vol. xiii, No. 29: July 21].
I too am frightened for the future and saddened by the galloping speed of development. Another span will indeed exasperate the situation. And heaven forbid the Bay Bridge-Tunnel lift the toll, for the Eastern Shore of Virginia will be gobbled up as well.
The very reasons that bring folks to the Shore are making it overpopulated, paved and polluted. We are losing our sense of place with every Bob Evans restaurant on what used to be a farm. Local restaurants, hardware stores and mom-and-pop businesses cannot compete with big box retailers.
Instead of owning businesses, locals are forced to work in service industries that feed, clean up after and accommodate wealthy tourists who buy up homes for rentals and farms for the viewscape. Affordable housing is difficult to come by. Local dialects are sadly fading, colonial relics are covered with asphalt and farms are now growing subdivisions.
I would like to know how many people commute across the bridge to work in Annapolis. Is there no place to live and raise a family on the Western Shore? According to the Delmarva Farmer newspaper, the last farm within the Baltimore Beltway has been sold for development. We have polluted the water to the extent that we can barely sustain certain fisheries. Will we also build over our most productive soils?
Forgive my rant and pessimism. Perhaps I just needed to commiserate with another forward-thinking soul. Please continue to follow and report on this folly.
—Carol Cain, Salisbury
Music Hall Tickets Good as Cash at Colonial Players
Dear Bay Weekly:
When Chesapeake Music Hall closed last December, some of its patrons were left with tickets and gift certificates, which they will not be able to redeem because of bankruptcy proceedings.
Annapolis is blessed to have an active pool of actors, directors and designers. As a member of that artistic community, The Colonial Players, Inc., was saddened when our friends and colleagues were forced to close.
In tribute, Colonial Players is offering to make good on any tickets or gift certificates still held by patrons of Chesapeake Music Hall for the 2005-’06 Season. If you have such tickets or vouchers, we welcome you to use them at Colonial Players in the first weekends of our new season, beginning August 26 with The Battle of Shallowford, a comedy by Ed Simpson.
The theater at 108 East Street in downtown Annapolis invites you to call the box office at 410-268-7373 to make your reservations or see our website at www.cplayers.com for more information.
—Ed Wintermute, President: The Colonial Players Inc.
