To the Editor:

It was with surprise and disappointment that I read Ed Hodges’ June 30 letter to the editor informing us for the first time that Councilwoman Virginia Finnerty was not going to nominate him for a third term to the Historical Preservation Commission of which he has chaired for the last five years.

I am a past Historic Preservation Commission member and served as its chairman for many years and have been the President of the Washington Area Historic Foundation for at least 15 years and can truly state that Mr. Hodges has done an exemplary job as chairman of the Historic Preservation Commission.

Councilwoman Finnerty is supposed to be the council liaison with the Historic District and has never once sought the Foundation’s input on any issue, including one as important as retaining Mr. Hodges as chairman. The Foundation often struggles to find well-qualified volunteers to serve on the Historic Preservation Commissioner and promotes well-qualified nominees as we supported Mr. Hodges’ nomination six years ago. At present, there are not enough volunteers to fully staff the Historic Preservation Commission and now we find ourselves short of its most valuable member and chairman.

Consistency, experience and a commitment to preservation are qualities that we need for members to be a success on the Historic Preservation Commission, and Mr. Hodges has shown time and again that he possesses those qualities. It would be a loss to our entire town to lose Mr. Hodges’ valuable wisdom, experience, temperament and knowledge.

For any person to have served his community with distinction and honor his whole life and then be thrown to the curb without so much as a phone call from Ms. Finnerty speaks more about Ms. Finnerty than it does for Mr. Hodges and our close-knit community of which this kind of behavior is, and also should be, foreign.

I pray that Ms. Finnerty consider the people she is supposed to serve and apologize to and re-nominate Mr. Hodges to the Historic Preservation Commission.

 

Don Stroud
Washington