"In July 2017, the federal government had awarded Yachting Solutions a $1.8 million matching grant to expand its existing facility...," subsidizing an entity "built in partnership with American Infrastructure Funds, Koch Real Estate Investments, Weatherford Capital, and Guggenheim Partners” assert two circumstances in this article that (though in separate paragraphs) if linked might transform inference into disreputable--if not scandalous--assertion. Did politics also promote this grant? If so, what kind of campaign support might have linked private and public backers?

I raise this possibility from my surprise five years ago from learning of this "matching grant", wondering why I had seen nothing reported earlier on this gift or on the appropriateness of public money to serve private interest. Despite volunteering in municipal affairs and tracking such matters, I had been unaware of any public hearings or other efforts to collect public opinion among those directly affected by this grant of public monies (our tax money) to private business. Private business soon to be acquired by what is described above as "the largest owner and operator of marinas in the world."

Something seemed more than a bit fishy to me, much more even than the odor along the waterfront. But so many fishy things were happening in 2017 that shorted out the insulation between private and public funds that I must have figured "same-old, same-old, all over again."

As was asserted famously during the Watergate years, "Follow the money!"

I hope that Editor Clancy, you will extend your excellent presentation here of the foundation your article has constructed to explore how such private interests obtained so much federal money, when, for example, Rockland's Fish Pier continues to suffer from under-funding, maintenance of public infrastructure that serves an industry and the public interest it supports so much more directly than catering to the wealthy and their indulgence in a pleasure navy that throws crumbs to the locals while it obstructs the public good.

George B. Terrien lives in Rockland