Two replies to Lyle E. Browning:

* He wrote: "Fortress Monroe is on the National Register of Historic 
Places." It's important to distinguish the moated stone fortress from 
the entirety of the 570 acres of Old Point Comfort, which is the 
entirety of Fort Monroe. And it's vital to note that all of Fort Monroe 
has been a national historic landmark for half a century -- as he 
rightly noted further down in his message. No one is seeking to ruin the 
moated stone fortress, but, as with those casinos that have been chased 
away from Gettysburg, plenty of people want to ruin its setting by 
blanketing a national historic landmark with upscale, multistory houses. 
The fort, not just the fortress, is at risk.

*  He wrote:  "I find it extremely annoying that the objections boil 
down to fiscal  expenditure as in: 'Dad-burned Federal Gummint' should 
not spend our  tax dollars when the private sector should do it." Amen, 
but here again there's a vital clarification to be made -- and a deep 
irony to be noted. The clarification: Journalists and others, trapped in 
master-story bias, can't seem to understand, even after over two years 
of civic discussion, that nobody is asking for a traditional national 
park. The only serious proposals for any national park have been for an 
innovatively structured, self-sustaining, revenue-generating one akin to 
San Francisco's Presidio. The irony: Not only would such a hybrid 
national park save federal money by reducing cleanup costs, it would 
actually boost the local economy in multiple ways. (Push my button to 
hear more about that; I'm worried that I'm straying too far into 
politics and out of this forum's history topic.) Unfortunately, to look 
at it this way requires looking at Fort Monroe strategically, rather 
than parochially. It's getting easier to persuade people to do that, but 
it's still hard.

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