In thinking about Mr. Karp, he and New England Development are the main story and the main issue that is at least lurking in the background of most Newburyporter’s brains.

And the fact that we are “powerless” over Mr. Karp, at least to me feels uncomfortable.

It feels to me that there is an absentee, non-existent person up there in the castle, and then there is the rest of us down below. And there is no indication of what would be the fate of the place that we are living in, we just know that definitely something is going to happen.

And in thinking about Mr. Karp and how people deal with our relatively “new” landlord, it seems people either trust New England Development and give them the benefit of the doubt. Or they don’t trust New England Development, and their inclination would be to “challenge” them.

But if you are a “challenger,” the frustrating thing would be that there has been little or no information from the New England Development folks, for what I think could be years now, to make a reasoned challenge with.

One could assume a “high-end homogenous” business plan. However, just how high-end that would end up being, don’t know.

So I’m trying to accept that I’m powerless over Mr. Karp, and just relax and accept whatever is coming. However, that’s a tough one, and it feels like a real loss. Because I’ve always felt that if a Newburyport resident paid attention and got involved, that they could make a real difference and contribution to our community. But now, I’m not so sure.

But lately I’ve been thinking to myself, well, with everything going on in the economy, and possible economic uncertainly in the future, that Newburyport might be lucky to have a billionaire who owns so much of Newburyport, MA, that could provide a cushion in difficult financial times.

And although I might not want “high-end homogenization” for my home town, at least I am pretty sure that Mr. Karp would do his best to make whatever happens “attractive.” And I do get the feeling that his intentions are to “do right” by Newburyport, MA. It’s just whether New England Development’s definition of “do right” would coincide with what residents feel would be a good definition of “do right.”

And maybe the worst scenario would be in a bad economy, for Mr. Karp to sell some or all of that very key property downtown and along the waterfront to someone who really doesn’t have any good intentions towards Newburyport, MA at all.

It just appears to be more and more of a long wait and see situation.

Mary Eaton
Newburyport