Thank you for focusing your April 4 issue on climate change, the number-one threat to the future of life on our planet. Thank goodness for Bill McKibben, who has probably done more than anyone else to bring global attention to this impending global catastrophe and what we can still do to mitigate it. And thank goodness for newspapers like the Addison Independent for editorials and news coverage devoted to “This biggest issue of our times.”
On a more parochial level, your article about the future of the Ben Franklin property on Main Street suggests another use — a golden opportunity really — for this venerable space. The idea already presented of converting the two upstairs apartments into four units of affordable housing sounds like a good use of that space. But in the former retail space downstairs, instead of game arcades, cheap food and a bowling alley, why not try to attract a first-class Mexican restaurant? That would obviously fill a huge void in the culinary offerings of our town. It would be a magnet for college students a short walk away, along with older folks from all around Addison County.
Shouldn’t the town planning commission, which just won a grant “to imagine the future of the village center,” include in its vision for Middlebury a really good but inexpensive Mexican restaurant on Main Street? The commission could undertake a search to find an enterprising restaurateur whose business, in this pivotal downtown location, would almost certainly thrive.
Dick Beamish
Middlebury