The December issue of The Coastal Star told a terrible tale about the acrid racial segregation that ruled in Florida throughout the 1950s. A lot of us are old enough to remember how vicious the hold of bigotry was in those years. We certainly do.
So it is with profound disappointment that we read Terry Brown’s letter asserting that current discussions about the Ocean Ridge beaches are equivalent to the segregationist madness that gripped our country in the 1950s. There is neither appropriate comparison nor equivalence between the two, and Brown’s assertion is deeply offensive to those of us who abhor racism.
The fact is many of us who live in Ocean Ridge are deeply and genuinely concerned about the impact on our town of large-scale development in the community of Boynton Beach. We wonder whether sufficient planning has been done to protect the quality of life in this terrific little place.
Ocean Ridge already provides beach access through public areas like the Boynton Beach Park, as well as through non-private accesses up and down the Old Ocean Boulevard. None of the discussion about pressures on beach access during the recent past has reflected any form of racism or bigotry relative to the use of the beach, and Brown has ill served the town by provocatively suggesting such a connection.
Furthermore, The Coastal Star did not advance or illuminate any rational discussion by printing his letter. Quite the opposite: The playing of the race card diminishes the opportunity for a realistic opinion exchange over just how much the town of Ocean Ridge must bend to the winds of property development, and developer enrichment, in the town of Boynton Beach.
Peter Hoe Burling
and Martin L. Gross
Ocean Ridge
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