To the editor of the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

 

Please accept a clarification concerning Bill Geroux's fine report on the closure-cost fiasco at Fort Monroe, the under-recognized national treasure at the mouth of Hampton Roads ("Cost of closure quadruples," Jan. 23): I have never said that only the "core" should become a grand public place for everybody. 

 

Nearly all of Fort Monroe has been a national historic landmark for a half-century. The land has been in public ownership as the Gibraltar of the Chesapeake for four centuries. Yet an unrepresentative state planning panel, dominated by Hampton City Council and a Hampton-solicitous Kaine administration, has prepared the way for piecemeal privatization of this historically and recreationally precious land.

 

My civic group advocates transforming all of this asset into a grand, self-sustaining public place via an innovative arrangement with the National Park Service. This would enrich Hampton, the rest of us and posterity in multiple ways, starting with the financial one.

 

Steven T. Corneliussen

Citizens for a Fort Monroe National Park (CFMNP.org)

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