Sally Hayton-Keeva certainly got my attention with her Sept. 24 letter in which she praises Mr. Spromberg’s opposition to Concerts on the Cove’s Sunday performances in the park. She has stimulated some serious re-evaluation.

I have ignored such letters in the past because most were written by people from Oak Harbor or Seattle who have never attended any of our concerts. Those out-of-towners don’t realize that we have never had a rock concert in the town park, we do not have cranked-up amplification in the town park, and we have very few hippies, if any ,and no punk rockers in attendance. The only hoodlum seen at our concerts has been my brother-in-law. (Our audiences are composed almost entirely of young families and senior citizens and one bald eagle that frequently perches behind the bandstand during the performance).

A few other such letters supporting Mr. Spromberg’s harassment of the concerts were written by local crackpots and airheads, and I considered them unworthy of response.

Sally Hayton-Keeva, however, is an esteemed leader in the community, and needs to be taken seriously.

Sally, I hear you.

The Concerts on the Cove board, in addition to monthly meetings, holds a retreat each autumn in which we develop our plans and strategies for the following year. We will be meeting in the home of one of our board members this weekend to do just such planning.

There is no financial reason to continue the summer Sunday performances. We have paid off the mortgage on the bandstand/pavilion in Town Park, and there is no profit to be made in the concerts. (The board/staff are all volunteers who work for no pay, and little recognition, solely as a service to the community.)

Perhaps we have been deceiving ourselves as to the value of the concerts to the public, and it may not be worth all the work we put into them, especially if they are offensive to such community leaders.

In response to Sally Hayton-Keeva’s letter, I will place at the top of the agenda for our meeting, a vote to decide if we should discontinue summer concerts in the park.

Vin Sherman, president

Concerts on the Cove