I find it hard to understand how both the mayor and city council have become so mesmerized over the rantings of Roger Brooks, our out-of-town tourism consultant, that all sanity flies out the window. Coupeville and Langley already have a platform in place for tourism and know how to deal with it.

We don’t need to rename our park. The baseball fields are a good thing. I estimate that a convention center would be used about 5 percent of the time with the other 95 percent of the time going for heating and maintenance. If financing is available from sewer funds and park impact fees, plus $600,000 from the general fund, I submit that residents of Oak Harbor are probably over taxed. Also, I seriously doubt that Island County commissioners are going to hand over “the lions share” of the sales tax to Oak Harbor.

Has anybody looked at the return on investment here, 30 or 40 years just to break even maybe. Perhaps we should send Mr. Brooks back to Seattle so he can assist them with their monorail.

Build the wharf to attract a whale watching service or maybe a foot ferry and leave the rest alone. At the very least this one’s going to have to go to the voters.

Paul Cramer

Oak Harbor