Letters: Harbor commission should ‘do the right thing' for artists

This letter is a request to Harbormaster Richard Young and the Harbor Commission to do the right thing.

For some reason known only to yourselves you have chosen to evict the harbor art gallery from the harbor by offering them rate raises and terms totally unaffordable and unreasonable to them in their attempt to obtain a new lease for the building they own on your land in the harbor.

Your last offer that the gallery turn over title to the building to you and then pay rent to occupy only a portion of the building and then move out if you decide that your maintenance of the building was too costly was such a ridiculously stupid suggestion that it is amazing that grown men supposedly in charge of running our harbor would even consider such an insult to this group of giving artists.

In the end, show some honor and at least make an offer to the gallery to buy its building at a fair price so that the artists can afford to relocate their non-profit organization. And I wish to stress that honor is the key issue here because to this point all of you have been totally devoid of it. You should all feel extreme shame when you look at yourselves.

The members of the art gallery need to focus their efforts on the murals they paint, on the education they give and on the enhancement of art in this community. It is mostly a group of senior citizens that are not able to spend all their time and effort fighting your twisted notion of what is good for the harbor and questioning why you want them out.

I'm not being dramatic when I say that you have brought many of the older members to tears as they question why you are doing this to them. So in the end, I would ask that you act as you should and not as you have.

Jay Chernak

Crescent City