To the editor:

I take issue with Dave McCarthy, Chair Veterans Honor Roll Committee member, who offers insufficient and inaccurate information that holding concerts on the Town Common would be ‘disrespectful’ of our brave citizens who served. In his letter, Mr. McCarthy offers no proof of how concerts are disrespectful, simply repeating that word doesn’t make it so.

I am a Vietnam War veteran and former fire and rescue specialist. Mr. McCarthy does not speak for me.

A few months ago I asked my son, who is Executive Director of The Collaborative, to help me arrange small acoustic concerts on the Common. Since a Town Common is traditionally a place where communities are allowed to gather freely, we assumed we’d get a 5-0 vote in favor of the summer concert series. When the Town Council voted 3-2 in favor of our proposal, my son and I felt like we were being asked to become the brokers for a Council who should have already had proper usage of the Common in place and spelled out for such requests.

Mr. McCarthy, and certain members of Town Council, further suggest that “there seems to be plenty of park land in the Town of Warren that could accommodate the Collaborative”. While this may be true, I feel I have as much right to the Common as any Warren resident. Somewhere, in years past, the town agreed to allow memorials honoring our town’s heroes; but, in my opinion, that doesn’t imply ownership and it doesn’t mean one group can appropriate the Common.

Further, I read in today’s Warren Times-Gazette that the Council has voted to continue to take up these decisions on a case-by-case basis in lieu of defining the usage of the space. We chose to withdraw our proposal, hoping the Town Council would come back to the table and prepare a specific usage plan so that this doesn’t happen again but instead this decision leaves future prospective proposals in the same fix my son and I find ourselves.

Elwood Donnelly

Campbell Street