The commentary “Our Great Lake missing the boat” was rather unfortunate (June 23). I will give a brief response, which hope will close the matter entirely.

There are many entities in the city trying to revitalize Dunkirk. The Historical Society of Dunkirk works hard – all with an entirely volunteer group of people – to protect and project its history, to present valuable events to remind the city of our shared history, and to raise funds to maintain our collection. The Chamber of Commerce and its volunteers work hard to advanced the interests of the city as well – at times working with other entities as well it should. If the County Chamber makes progress, we do as well – something good for the county is good for the city and vice versa. We have a mayor who also is working hard to deal with the many parts of the community, county, and state to advance the interests of the city. We were thrilled he took the time to visit our event, as we were when previous mayors have done so.

The Historical Society of Dunkirk is in no way involved with restoring train service to Dunkirk, nor will it be involved. That is a matter for officials with more power and money than we have. We have no power to cause the railroad company to spend a million dollars to bring back the station.

The society has enough to do dealing with its own building and financial issues. As for the Locomotive 444 100th anniversary celebration event held recently at the fairgrounds, we feel the OBSERVER gave us good coverage before the event. We were again happy the mayor and some council members attended, but note there was no ceremony held due to the inability to have a PR system present.

Roy Davis and his railroad committee worked very long and hard to put that event together and any attempt to insult them is reprehensible. He was not able to arrange a formal ceremony and that’s OK. We feel our brief meeting with city officials who attended satisfied the intent of the celebration. No one was rude and I do not understand how the writer could accuse anyone of being that.

I would also state that her remarks on the Chamber of Commerce were inappropriate. She seems to have no understanding of the work they do for the city in putting the interests of the city forward in every way they can. She has no understanding of how working with the Chautauqua Chamber is in the best interest of the city as cooperation only leads to better things.

Diane Andrasik is a Dunkirk resident and Dunkirk Historical Society board member.