OK, I will try to keep emotion out of this and not cast blame on anyone. I think the Howard Street project is worthy, it will improve pedestrian safety and ease access, it will greatly beautify what has become a shabby and unattractive street by putting in planters, benches, and other amenities, and it will make our town more appealing to tourists and seasonal visitors who are likely to linger and spend money. In my opinion it is long since past time for the town to work up its collective nerve and not let a handful of property owners, who for all we know are not even living in the county, hold up a worthwhile civic improvement of which we will all be proud when it is done.

Where can I get some beetles?! Mr. McDonald, are you breeding/raising/distributing these beetles?! Your project needs some stimulus money from Obama!
The comments about cold weather killing off HWA does not seem right--15 years ago they were already killing trees in Pennsylvania, New England, etc., where the winters provide more sustained cold than we get.
BTW I am surprised I am the first person to comment on this story. Sam, your determination to give this topic such in-depth coverage is very commendable. I hope more people notice.

This plan sounds encouraging in many ways, and I hope "town and gown" will cooperate in their long-range planning better than has been done in the past. Above all, there need to be lanes and pathways laid out between uptown and campus. For many years, improvements on Howard Street have been held up; now is the time for attractive connectors to be planned, especially for the northwest part of campus, that will encourage bicycle and pedestrian traffic through as well as around the campus.

I guess the only way we are going to know what Nancy knew and when Nancy knew it is to waterboard her...
What a total distraction this is, since NO ONE on the GOP side of the aisle said anything about the torture briefings (well duh, they all thought it was great). This flap over Pelosi (and the bumbling defense she is putting up just makes the Republicans all the louder and more vicious) is a smokescreen to hide their own culpability in allowing unconstitutional and illegal actions by the Bush-Cheney minions. They were in the majority after all when all this happened. I agree with nat8899 that someone needs to prosecute the Bush people, whether in the Justice Department, CIA, the military, private contractors, whoever, who were putting this whole torture program together. And from the squeals he's making all over the media, I think the buck stops with Dick Cheney.