Letters: Let’s remember that City Dock is a sacred space

City Dock

Our City Dock is a zone of opportunity. Isn’t it also a sacred space?

I attended a presentation of a proposal for City Dock that includes a hotel with 143 rooms, a garage for at least 400 cars, a turn-around for the cars and buses, a pedestrian promenade and a splash fountain. The hotel requires zoning changes and a donation of our city property.

Development needs to support many interests, including those of residents, current businesses, state government, our history and the boating community.

The people-friendly scale of Annapolis is central to its charm. This building would be 70 feet tall — twice as tall as surrounding structures — and approach the size of the waterfront hotel, meaning there would be much less open space in the dock area.

Putting more parking at the hotel will funnel traffic into town, increasing pollution and congestion. Garages at the edges of the Historic District encourage visitors to walk or use the circulator.

Last fall’s conference on rising water levels presented facts to be considered for our city and any new development. Should we have more concrete or a landscaped park in this space?

Any proposal that touches our sacred spaces, such as City Dock, deserves our careful consideration. Governing is a work of careful process, involving giving thought to details, listening to all sides and remaining devoted to the needs of the people who live and work here.

Redevelopment of the dock area provides an opportunity. Let’s take this chance to create something beautiful of which we can be proud!

CATHERINE CLARK

Annapolis

DACA program

The view equating Dreamers, or those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, with people attempting to take Ravens seats from their rightful owner (The Capital, Feb. 6) is simplistic, misinformed and insulting.

In his letter, Ty Collins characterizes Dreamers as takers of free housing, free medical care, food and education that we pay for. This perpetuates the myth that DACA imposes such a burden on taxpayers. The opposite is true.

As the National Academy of Sciences has determined and the conservative Cato Institute has confirmed, first-generation immigrants who enter the U.S. as children, including all DACA recipients, pay, on average, more in taxes over their lifetime than they receive in benefits, regardless of their education level. Recipients of DACA contribute more than the average because they are not eligible for any welfare, cash assistance, food stamps or medical or health care tax credits.

Eighty-nine percent of DACA recipients are employed by U.S. businesses. In Maryland, DACA recipients paid an estimated $41 million in state and local taxes in 2016.

Attempting to tie DACA recipients to increased crime perpetuates another myth. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than other Americans and crime rates decline in areas where immigrants settle.

Further, to participate in DACA individuals must pass a thorough background check and are required to be in school or have a high school diploma or honorable discharge from the armed services.

These DACA recipients, brought to this country through no fault of their own, are asking to be allowed to continue to contribute legally to the only society they have known. We should welcome them.

MARYLYN MASON

Severna Park

Nooses

The article headlined “Sen. John Astle puts forth hate crime legislation” (The Capital, Feb. 15) refers to the hanging of a noose at Crofton Middle School last year as the catalyst for legislation that would add the word “group” to the state’s hate crime law. However, even with this word, the outcome in this case would have been the same.

Hanging a noose on public property is a crime, but — as Judge Paul Harris found — it doesn’t satisfy the requirements of a hate crime. It is true that the noose is a long-standing symbol of the lynching of black Americans, both during and after slavery, but it is far from limited to being associated with lynching.

Hangings have been occurring for thousands of years, appearing in the Bible and the writings of Homer and Dante. Moreover, three states — Delaware, New Hampshire and Washington — still authorize hanging as an alternative method of execution.

MIKE MALONEY

Crofton