Disingenuous:

To the editor: I found Steve Stajich’s recent Bay City Beat more than a little disingenuous. The photo of the new condos on the corner of Main Street and Marine Street seems to have been deliberately framed to NOT show the adjacent five story Elks Lodge built in the 1920s or the three story office building next door. The site of the new condos was previously a vacant lot. Mr. Stajich laments the demolition of the old “Pioneer Boulangerie.” I remember it well. I would go there to have lunch back in 1978. But there was nothing charming about it after it had been derelict for more than twenty years. Another condo project at the corner of Bicknell Street and Main Street will fill a lot that was littered and vacant. I have lived in this neighborhood for many years. The area on Main Street between Bay Street and Bicknell was not at all charming, it would best be described as “urban blight.” I don’t find the new condo projects attractive but they are not offensive either. They are a vast improvement to the derelict buildings and littered empty lots they replace. A.L. “Bud” Byrnes IIISanta Monica