Letters to the editor
The soul thrives in nature
Well said, Victor McGregor (Feedback, HV1, 7/29). You imply what I believe: that what some realize but many don’t is that Winston Farm is the soul of Saugerties. And we pave over our soul at the cost of losing it.
Losing one’s soul is no laughing matter. Better to keep it and care for it than to have a job or a house, much less those even more elusive lower taxes.
The soul of Winston Farm is its ecosystem: its plants, animals, and insects; its woods and wetlands and grasslands. The soul thrives in nature, not in the built environment. Winston Farm, just as it is, matters to community life in Saugerties just like an individual soul matters to that person. Without it, you’re only alive in the material sense.
But jobs and houses are important to material life. So it’s a happy fact is that Saugerties has large areas already zoned for commercial development and plenty of retail space in the already-existing village waiting for development. And there is visibly plenty of property to build more houses on. How about on the ample acreage of some of the people who would like to build them on Winston Farm? The point being that there’s absolutely no need to destroy the soul of Saugerties for either jobs or housing.
Even worse, I’ve heard, is to actually sell your soul. Here’s where the motivation to make money comes in. The only people in danger in that scenario are the investors who own Winston Farm (the three local businessmen we know about and whoever else may be hiding behind that “LLC”). They could gain their souls as well as the blessings of current and future residents of Saugerties and of all who visit Saugerties for her small-town rural charm.
As for the five members of the town board in whose hands the decision to keep Winston Farm substantially intact lies, teir responsibility is grave. In the name of all that really matters, SOS!
Janet Moss Asiain
Saugerties
