Once again Aberdeen has lost another seemingly tireless volunteer who dedicated many hours of his personal time to the attempted improvement of the city. Aaron Nickell has resigned recently from the Historical Preservation Commission. He has been much to polite as to his reasons and for the most part taken the high road when asked why he is leaving. With that said on the HPC page he has posted his final good bye and it is well worth reading if you have an interest in historical buildings, preservation, and the lack of interest shown by those supposedly trying to improve the city. I have copied and pasted the text below for those who dont belong to the page: A note before I hand this page over to another commission member: As a citizen and public servant, I vehemently oppose moving or demolishing the Pourhouse building for the purpose of building a visitor center. The Pourhouse is the oldest extant building in downtown. It survived the great Aberdeen fire. It is a bastion of history and a local treasure. Visitor centers are - in my opinion - poor capital investments that will not empirically improve Aberdeens existential reality nor provide a return on investment. A recent study by the state of Vermont concluded that their statewide visitor center activity decreased by nearly 18% in the last seven years. We live in a world of smart phones, iPhones, iPads, and Galaxies: visitor centers are redundant unless they are in state or national parks. The City of Aberdeen hired Cary Bozeman and Scott Reynvaan as consultants. They were expected to stimulate and execute revitalizing capital projects for our downtown. Despite notifying city staff that both gentlemen were welcome to attend Aberdeen Historic Preservation Commission meetings, they have not attended one. They did reach out to me personally: as a public servant, I refuse to forge working relationships behind closed doors at lunch meetings or at the Aberdeen Revitalization Movements headquarters. Conversations and relationships must be forged in public, congruent to the Washington State Open Public Meetings Act. The Historic Preservation Commissions blatant exclusion from this project tells me that our consultants hold little to no regard for Aberdeens historic resources: theyll get another $50,000 for another feasibility study while planning the inevitable end of the Pourhouse. I view the proposed visitor center as a monument to earnest yet misguided leaders who set out to get something done and - indeed - will likely get something done, with little to no regard for the socioeconomic consequences for our taxpayers or irrevocable consequences for our built historical environment. I wish Aberdeen continued success, and I wish for more salient transparency in our local government. Signing off, Aaron
Posted on: Mon, 24 Nov 2014 06:24:54 +0000
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