Hadley Planning Board member John Mieczkowski told his side of the story in his letter to the editor in the Gazette on April 7. But as my Hopkins Academy history teacher taught us, “Like a coin, every story has two sides.”
Here is another side to this story: While you see neighbors that no longer respect and talk to each other, I see fellow citizens running a 5K race to raise money for new technology tools for our schools, while dozens of others volunteer on committees for the new library, senior center, and fire substation.
While you write that, “It doesn’t make a difference what color you are, the language you speak or what religion you practice,” comments you have made during recent Planning Board meetings reflect something completely different.
On YouTube, the whole world can witness what you have said about some of our neighbors. I can only imagine what they felt after hearing what you said. Even if you do not consider your comments to be racist, imagine the bias that they must feel in having you judge their application to renovate the North Hadley garage.
No one is perfect, but we deserve better representation on our Planning and Select Boards. We have three major projects in motion now, and we need to be talking about East Street and River Drive rather than Yugoslavia, India, and where we can park our camels.
You ask us to stop pointing fingers, yet so many of us have seen you be the first to point at others, suggest blame, and threaten litigation against our town. Your reluctance to move the senior center project forward led to plans being redrawn and will give us a smaller building in the end.
The same day as your letter, the Gazette ran a front-page story about how you are sending letters to the election division of the Massachusetts Secretary of State objecting to comments others made at a recent meeting.
The Planning Board chairman stated this is, “Not who we (Hadley) are,” but this is exactly who we are until we vote for change.
Jack Czajkowski
Hadley
(Editor’s note: This letter was received before Tuesday’s town election at which Mieczkowski was defeated in his bid for a Select Board seat. Voters also removed him from the Planning Board.)