This was posted on online message board Cape Ann Online by a message board poster named flutterby. I asked flutterby for permission to reprint it here because I thought it made a lot of sense.
I only wanted to jump in and say that, although I was in fact born at AGH, as were my dad, both his parents, and my son, and am descended from Gloucester fishermen back to before the Cut was made, I welcome mixed use changes to the harbor (except condos, which create enclaves and block access) and consider my background as a native to be my heritage and an element of my viewpoint, but not a claim to superiority in determining what we should do as a city for our future. For that, we need everyone who is here now, coming together for pragmatic planning to build solutions that serve us all.
I oppose the idea that only commercial fishing and its interests belong on the harbor. Fishing should not dominate by law what it no longer dominates in fact. I doubt very much that my schooner forebears are rolling over in their graves to hear that, either, because I know that at least one of them predicted what is happening to fishing right now, for one very good reason: the arrival of the gasoline engine. That invention alone, applied to fishing, has created much opportunity for wealth and success for a finite number of generations, including whole families of immigrants who came to Gloucester after it was invented. But, as my great-grandfather predicted, it was at the same time the death knell of the industry, because it meant that the fish would be depleted eventually and that bigger boats, bigger engines, bigger and better technology would “be the ruination of the fleet.”
My dad, at 80, tears up these days on every ride around the back shore for what has changed and what is gone. I myself wish I could have seen Gloucester Harbor crowded with masts and sails. Most of us now living never knew that harbor, but we know something came along to replace it, as unimaginable as that must have been to other generations.
But we are not a museum in need of preservation and restoration. We are a limp-along community with mounting threats to our very existence, in need of island-wide resuscitation and emergency care. Just take, for example, this latest crisis with the water. How long do you think it will take the corporate folks at Gorton’s to reassess their Gloucester location, at the loss of $7000 per day, and a system of water quality that is probably in need of a bazillion-dollar overhaul of pipes before we are assured of this not happening again?
I am not immune to the reflexes of “NO!” I am naturally suspicious of anybody who comes at our harbor with a profit motive. In fact, I’m a classist, I freely admit it, who reviles the rich for their ability to make all this theirs with a signature, or to buy an oil of my great-grandfather on his schooner but dismiss today’s working mariner with a turned back. But I’ve had to get over my reflexes and look past my gut reactions. There are responsible, pragmatic, wise ways to develop and allow growth without killing the spirit or the heritage of our harbor; to acknowledge what is past about the fishing industry without holding ourselves hostage to it.
I was moved at Tuesday’s meeting by those few speakers who dared to get up to the podium and point out the naked emperor in the room. In fact, to mix a metaphor, we’re arguing decor while the ice berg looms to starboard. I vote we work to relax the DPA and put this harbor to a wider variety of uses.
Good Morning Gloucester 
That was Very well put and I couldn’t have said it better myself
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Yes, nicely said flutterby. I was telling a schooner crew member yesterday that what makes Gloucester Harbor unique is in fact its’ diversity. One day last week, I looked out and in one glance was a cruise ship, a historic schooner, a whale-watcher, all types of fishing boats, pleasure craft of every kind, kayaks and a rowing dory. I have had the opportunity to visit many ports in this great country and Gloucester is unique. I sincerely hope that while all that can be done to support commercial fishing here is done, as time and technology change. so should the harbor’s usage continue to grow in diversity.
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gloucester won’t be”unique”if they change the zoning on the waterfront. it will only be for the rich!!!
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It wont be for the rich if they do it right.
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they dont do much right, i saw the same thing happen in key west in the eighties,alot of the locals had to sell their houses as they couldnt afford to pay the high real estate taxes!!
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This is excellent.
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Bravo, in every sense of the word. Your words.! Well said.
Thank you
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