RE: “With friends like these...” [Response, Mar. 8]:
I find Mike Mrowicki’s piece quite clever and disingenuous.
The Friends of Putney group he tries hard to smear by accusing them of supporting Republicans who in turn support the Right to Life movement is a gross distortion, because Friends of Putney include Democrats, Republicans, Independents, women of all ages, people of color, poor folks and not-so-poor folks, radicals, hippies, and even Jane Fonda’s daughter — whose mom, as Mr. Mrowicki well knows, is America’s foremost radical — light years to the left of the picture he’s trying hard to paint.
The main issue the Friends group is supporting is the opportunity for Putney residents to build or convert housing literally in their own backyard, as a community-based, sensible and viable alternative to inviting big-money landlords to come in and lump at-risk folks together in one housing project in a town with no pharmacy, no low-cost accessible food, and poor mass transit.
It’s laughable when Mrowicki raises his tar brush to accuse this rainbow coalition of concerned citizens of not wanting undesirable folks in their own backyard, when that’s precisely what they are wanting!
It almost makes me wonder if, like many politicians who can’t practice what they preach, Mr. Mrowicki is the one who doesn’t want low-income folks in his backyard.
Mark Borax
Putney