Editor, Gazette-Journal:

My wife and I moved to Gloucester in part to escape a city government that was mostly deaf to the wishes of its citizens. Big developers and big government took precedence over citizens and, sometimes, common sense. The continuing discussions concerning the replacement for Page Middle School have convinced me that these tendencies are alive and well in the county.

Ever since that terrible day when the tornado cut through the school, the argument has been over the location and the cost for a replacement. County citizens overwhelmingly requested that the new school be built on the old location. Instead, the school board, blinded by their delusions of grandeur, chose to destroy a pristine forest/wetlands area directly across the road. Myriad reasons have been given for this choice, none of which justifies the change in location or the added expense.

One reason was the supposed contamination of the old school site, which would be too expensive to mitigate. ...