I can't believe John R. Dewitt could even write the letter he did regarding, “No need for an extravagant new town barn for the town of Niles.” I am sure the town of Niles' residents will recall how when Mr. Dewitt as town supervisor used the “capital funds,” as he calls it, to build the existing town office building in excess of $600,000!

The building is beautiful and using that building for the many uses as he suggested would be nice but certainly not a necessary or urgency at this time. In addition, there has been an existing kitchen and dining room at the Methodist Church in New Hope that has been used for many years for youth groups, many types of recreation and senior citizen meetings.

In addition, without a full functioning, well-equipped and safety regulated town barn with facilities to repair and maintain functioning equipment, how do you think any of the residents would be able to get to any facility if the roads are not cleared and safe?

Having a new fire station would be wonderful and I would support that if the fire department were trying to raise money for one.

In addition, I think a ballfield, recreation area, senior center, walking park are all wonderful ideas but Mr. Dewitt, why didn't you think of all this when you were town supervisor? You could have put up a less expensive useful, smaller town office building, have a new safer more functioning town barn built in addition to getting these other projects going then.

I want it known that the extra land to aid in this project is coming from my family. I, too, grew up in New Hope, and a lot of my family still live there; my husband and I had planned on moving back to New Hope and build a home as we retire in the future.

But with the way you want the town to retreat to substandard ways, it leaves me to wonder if the area would be a safe haven and encourage new families to move there.

I hope all residents and taxpayers of the town of Niles will see the smoke screen Mr. Dewitt is doing and remember the town didn't need an over-$600,000 town office building.

Sharon Weeks

Locke