Arena proposal not good for areaIn response to Brad Sykes letter which appeared 4/18/97: Mr. Sykes, YOU are the one who is grossly misinformed about the arena/stadium project. You are correct that no one wants to look at the “ratty old Pen site”, but the issue is one of development appropriate for the area and sensitive to the surrounding neighborhood.Let me ask this: Where are you going to park? We all know that in Columbus the automobile is the preferred means of transportation. The proposed arena/stadium complex has the combined capacity to hold more than 60,000 individuals, yet the plans call for only 3,000 parking spaces. Are you going to carpool with 19 friends? Or are you going to declare Goodale Park a temporary parking facility as others do for Red, White & Boom when no other parking is available nearby?Can we really believe Doug Kridler (Lantern 4/18/97) when he says that noise will not be an issue because rock concerts won’t be playing the arena, but it will be used for “symphonic and operatic concerts”? (I can’t stop laughing over that one!) This is a for-profit arena, and anyone and everyone with the cash will play at that facility.The “cowtown” aspect to this whole fiasco is that our civic leaders think we’re all dumb enough to vote for this without doing appropriate neighborhood impact studies, traffic studies, noise pollution studies, etc. We deserve better leadership and better planning for such a valuable piece of downtown real estate. That’s what will rid us of the cowtown image, not another “shiny new building”. VOTE NO ON ISSUE ONE!
Kathleen Sandman, Ph.D.staffMicrobiology
