Letter: Ill-considered decision

The city of Richland is allowing a large “privately organized event” on Tuesday at the public Columbia Point Marina Park in Richland.

They expect “to attract several thousand visitors.” They will be closing the public boat ramp at the Columbia Point Marina all day, and closing Columbia Point Drive to the “heavier-than normal volumes of traffic” in the late afternoon and evening.

The event is expected to last about two hours, will feature a live band, and be followed by an “approved fireworks display.”

I live on Columbia Point Drive. Several hundred people do. There are many businesses on one side of the two-lane, dead-end street, such as Anthony’s, Lulu’s, Budd’s Broiler.

Do these businesses benefit by having access to them closed off? Do we residents appreciate the noise, congestion, and difficulty in reaching our homes?

I do not.

Columbia Point Park is small; it does not hold thousands.

This “event” is “Decision America” a rally by the Billy Graham Evangelical Association.

Franklin Graham will be here. Whoopee!

Only 13 places in the Northwest have accepted their money to disrupt citizens’ lives.

I think Richland city officials, like Joe Schiessl, have made an ill-considered decision.