To the editor:

The other day, I heard Tim Follos talk about the idea of creating future possibilities for Wilmington. And it was great.

For years now, we’ve been hearing and voicing complaints about the changes brought upon us by a radically changing real estate market — Airbnb’s, COVID-19, McMansions, clear-cutting, population growth, increased assessments, inflated property taxes, and the subsequent lack of affordable housing. We’ve been suffering through the entrenched, outdated local government policies that are excessively attentive to expanding tourism (you gotta love that KOA trailer park!) and inattentive to local concerns and the well-being of residents.

No surprise then that we hear, over and over, about the decimation of the community.

But nostalgia and waxing sentimental about community no longer cut it. At this point, it simply feeds the politics of emotional manipulation. Much as we might like bitching about the present and reminiscing about the good old days that never were, vague campaign promises about bringing back a bucolic past and community are the stuff of empty rhetoric. It is empty rhetoric that keeps us spinning the same-old-same-old, distracted from what goes on, watching reruns of an imaginary past. (Welcome to Mayberry.) It is not the stuff of community formation.

What Tim recognizes is that community is lived experience. Community comes about through the activity of neighbors dealing with one another. It means listening and figuring out, discussing, disagreeing, and coming together through participation in projects that move towards a brighter future. Whether community concerns are as prosaic as improving our park facilities — more shade, more kid friendly infrastructure, putting in an agility course or free run for dogs — or as forward thinking as acquiring grant money towards a wildlife refuge and child-friendly nature center, a bike lane or trail system, public or senior housing, or even building a town-wide energy facility on the sun-baked area of our current landfill … these are things that build community.

Don’t get me wrong: there’s cause for the complaints. For a while now, Wilmington residents have watched as short-sighted town officials have pursued easy money — promoting investments in tourism by hacking away at our local resources and thus diminishing precisely those things that make it worthwhile to live here.

We watched as town officials gave away our local beach … The public outcry against the construction of townhouses was, in effect, ignored and bypassed by the town supervisor and the board. Grant monies that would have helped fund dredging were lost. Yet shallow waters still make for wading, floating, and paddling, so that Wilmington residents pay for the lifeguards and the upkeep of a town beach that is crowded with tourists.

We’ve watched as our local woods have been cut down — making the way for the developments of large-plot McMansions with lawn care, paving the way for non-residential LLCs to cash in on the Airbnb bubble. Again, the public outcry against STRs was ignored. So today, in effect, residential areas function as motels wherein local taxes provide public services to neighborhoods of strangers.

Yes, we’ve watched as these and other local issues — zoning and deforestation, the Youth Center’s summer program, the Library, the absence of a community center that might foster senior or cultural events, and an ever-escalating budget — have been sidelined in pursuit of an ever-elusive tourist dollar. These are things that can and should be addressed. But we also need to plan and look ahead.

We need someone on the town board who actually listens to and gives voice to the concerns of local citizens (thank you, Randy Winch, for running). And we need someone who understands conservation management and tourism (thank you, Hanna Cromie, for running). And most of all, we need someone with the capacity to take leadership, to survey and assess how to better serve, to look forward and create a community (thank you, Tim, for deciding to become town supervisor).

Carol Wiebe

Wilmington