Dear Editor:
Email: “This citizen still doesn’t get it – but at least Jill Doyle from HCLA tried. And I’ve offered to meet with her as well.”
Reporter: Can you be specific about who the citizen is, and what it is that she doesn’t “get.”
Cooke: I won’t share the citizen’s name, but I can tell you the context behind the e-mail. A woman who was angry about the trail proposal posted Facebook messages tagging other community leaders that portrayed HCLA as the group behind the trail proposal. HCLA Executive Director Jill Doyle met with her to explain the difference and about the role of my HCLA team’s project work – a study of rail and trail – as compared to my role with the city working to achieve the Mayor’s vision for this corridor.
Regarding the quote above, I am that “woman.”
For the record, I am involved with two arts-related nonprofits in Noblesville that depend upon the City’s support as part of the Cultural Arts District, but I am first and foremost a PRIVATE CITIZEN with the right to speak out about my City, which I love. I have never said a word about the train situation as a representative of either arts organization in which I am involved; I speak only for myself in regards to anything I say about the train situation. Furthermore, both nonprofits are all-volunteer and I am not paid for my involvement in either organization.
Regarding the article, which I quote above:
As far as I know, Deputy Mayor Steve Cooke has never offered to meet with me. I did request a meeting with him (via email to him) in April after the Noblesville “Listening Session”; he responded that he would “get back to me” after he gave my email some thought, and eventually he got back to me in May. There was no mention of a meeting in either email.
Steve Cooke was not at the meeting I had with HCLA (Hamilton County Leadership Academy) Executive Director Jill Doyle. There is a clear common denominator between the HCLA “rails-to-trails class project” that Steve Cooke’s HCLA “team” has been working on and the Rails-to-Trails initiative put forth by the City. That link is simple fact, not an “angry” citizen’s misunderstanding. At the end of my meeting with Jill Doyle, I told her that I’d accept that she/HCLA and perhaps the other members of Steve Cooke’s HCLA team had “no knowledge” of “how” their “HCLA class project” made its way to City Hall, and I told her that I would not hold her, HCLA, or the rest of Steve Cooke’s HCLA team responsible for the City’s efforts to rip out an historic and important part of our City’s cultural heritage. In my meeting with Jill Doyle, she made it very clear that she was meeting with me to protect the HCLA’s reputation. She made it very clear that HCLA did not want to be linked to “how” Steve Cooke’s team’s HCLA project made its way to City Hall/the Mayor’s Office. For the record, I’m not holding HCLA responsible for the City’s plan to rip out our historic heritage railway corridor, but I do still believe the HCLA “project” (again, I refer to an HCLA team class project, and Steve Cooke is one of that team’s members) is connected to the City’s plan via one common denominator: Deputy Mayor Steve Cooke.
Mr. Cooke, I don’t need you to speak for me: I believe I do very much “get it.”
Alys Caviness – Gober
Noblesville