It's unfortunate that the St. Paul's opinion poll that was to have been done by the POAs is apparently not going to take place. It would have been an ideal opportunity for the POAs to inform their respective trustees of the wishes of their residents.

While an agreement on the wording of the poll would have been preferable, it's still important for the POAs to provide guidance to the trustees about the views of their residents. While many views have been aired in the letters column of this paper (and we've published darn near every signed letter on the topic) we have no idea if their views necessarily represent the majority of the residents. With all due respect to Mayor Bee, the idea of hiring a professional pollster might take the heat of the POAs, but it just puts off the debate about how the poll should be worded and still leaves open the possibility that the poll would later be called unfair by whichever side "loses".

How about this as a suggestion: each POA should endeavor to solicit the views of its residents and then request that their Trustee abide by those wishes during the official votes of the Board of Trustees. The POA directors could ask residents their views of any or all of the options: AvalonBay or mothballing or demolition. That way, if the members of a particular POA don't want to consider one or more of the options, they don't have to. (However, if the Board ultimately voted on such a proposal, that POA's Trustee would not have had the advice of his POA.)

To solicit the opinions of their residents, POAs could variously hold internal polls or "town hall" style meetings or some other form of public participation to be determined by the Boards of Directors of the POAs.

The purpose of the four POAs is to represent each section's residents and advise the Trustees. We think that instead of running counter to the spirit of the Community Agreement such a plan would, in fact, uphold the Agreement.

Meg Morgan Norris

Publisher