To the editor:

Hi folks. I was very happy to read the letter about younger people wanting the Lake Flower hotel. I am glad that they want what’s best for Saranac Lake’s future.

I do, too, and am 76 years old.

When I was a young man in 1955, I was determined to find a job in Saranac Lake and checked the Enterprise every day, and there were zero jobs available. I don’t think there was even an unemployment office, or even unemployment then. The prisons came in and saved us, but with some of them closing and the possibility that more will, it’s time for us to stand up and do what we can for our own future.

I retired and moved home in 1975 after a career in the military, only to find that the environmental fanatics tell us how we should live here.

I must remind everyone that this view of Lake Flower was nonexistent when I was a kid. River Street was loaded with businesses on the lakeshore … from Main Street to Lake Flower Avenue.

The folks we see in the newspaper who are so vocal against the hotel are not from here but are merely trying to force their opinion on what they want the Adirondacks to be on the rest of us. They are financially secure, and most do not even live in the village (I don’t, either, but do own property in the village). Clyde Rabideau has openly stated that he will not give the same amount of weight to ideas of those who live outside of the village.

Thank you, Clyde!

Jon Bombard

Saranac Lake