Opinion

On Wednesday of this week the Planning Commission has scheduled a workshop to discuss proposed revisions to the Landmark Preservation Ordinance. More hours of my life than I care to count, over a four-year period while I was on the Landmark Preservation Commission, were devoted to work on a revised LPO which was ultimately endorsed last summer by a majority of LPC commissioners. Practically every clause represents a compromise between commissioners who are dedicated to conserving old buildings as much as possible and those who regard some old buildings as opportunity sites for new construction. But like most compromises, the attempt to please everyone might turn out to have pleased no one. -more-

It’s become a staple Christmas Grinch feature for small town papers, metro dailies, and even NPR: The Salvation Army’s familiar bell ringers with kettles for donations are banned from yet another collection site. This year’s villain is the Target chain, which gets a fair amount of favorable publicity at other times of the year from its foundation’s support of a variety of charitable causes. Target’s excuse is that if they let the Salvation Army collect, everyone else wants to do it too. Sorry, but that’s not good enough. -more-