Re[2]: [at-l] Content---

[Bob Cummings <ellen@clinic.net> (Bob C.)]

"... But he made the very same suggestion just a week before." complains Ron M.

One thing I quickly learned in the newspaper business was that one story rarely
results in anyone taking an interest. When I was writing about the 400,000 acres
that Maine preserved when it sold its public domain, but then forgot what it
owned, my goal was to do enough stories for people to take an interest.

 I had no way of knowing what the legal intricacies of a state taxing public
 land as private land for more than a century might do to the state's title. I
 knew that until someone more talented than me looked at the problem, we would
 never find out.

  So I rewrote the story at every chance. Eventually, someone noticed. There
  ensued several years of court testimony and -- after 10 years -- a Maine law
  court decision that Maine in fact owned these lands, free and clear.

  Most of the areas of the trail in Maine that now have significant buffers from
  development now exist as a result of the recovery of these long forgotten
  lands.

  All I'm suggesting is that if one is trying to get folks to listen, it often
  takes more than a simple suggestion, even on such an open list as this one.

   Weary