What's done is done, let's move on
To the Editor,

Recent "Letters to the Editor" referring to my comments concerning the proposed Curtiss Memorial Park, published the week after the vote, indicate that the "Friends of Hammondsport" were not involved with efforts for the park after the first referendum. While I, as an outside observer, have not been privy to the relationship of the FOH with the writer of the "national publicity" article in the June/July 2006 issue of the Air and Space/Smithsonian magazine, the offending article certainly leads once to believe that it was sponsored, or perhaps a better phrase would be "aided and abetted," by the FOH, one of whose members is referred to as providing the transportation for the author while in Hammondsport. Some of the FOH members were interviewed by the author and certainly were aware of the probable slant of the piece even if they couldn't control what was written. These events took place well after the first referendum's defeat and hinted at a second try.

Four of Hammondsport's prominent citizens did, in fact, compose a joint letter to the Smithsonian, rebuking them for publishing such trash. I am afraid that I shall have to stand by my original opinion that this offending article did carry an apparent relationship, of some type, to the FOH, whether or not they intended it to do so, and did have some influence on the outcome of the second referendum. Perhaps we can now put this failed project behind us and consider other means to promote Glenn Curtiss' and Hammondsport's amazing contributions to early aviation.
Bill Gilmore
Bath