Gun Factory Smokestack & Lake Street Public Park

of a pregnancy–are used in about half of all abortions today.

In the months since Dobbs was decided, various legal developments have only con rmed the urgency with which action must be taken to protect women’s access to abortion medications.

Almost immediately a er the Dobbs ruling, congressional Republicans introduced legislation that would impose a nationwide ban on abortions (even as other Republican politicians denied they’d do so and incorrectly stated that Dobbs le the issue to the states, not Congress). Meanwhile, anti-choice groups have seized on Dobbs to le lawsuits to eviscerate women’s access to abortion even absent legislative action.

In one case, anti-choice groups and nearly two dozen Republican Attorneys General are asking a federal judge in Texas to impose a nationwide ban on abortion medications. e lawsuit ies in the face of both science (decades of which prove the medicines to be safe and e ective) and the

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By Carol Kammen

To the Ithaca City Mayor, Laura Lewis

And to the Ithaca City Common Council e Gun Company began by producing high quality and unique hunting ri es that were used, in many cases, to bring home game that fed families. e company provided jobs that allowed workers to create families, buy homes, and feel a sense of pride in their work as it became a landmark company. ere is little today to mark those who worked to create the city that we now call home. eir gardens have been turned into large structures created that provide little employment, their houses are torn down or have been converted into expensive apartments or parking lots, the products of their handiwork are disappearing. at history is being obliterated as Ithaca more and more becomes a place too expensive for workers with low wages, and home ownership in the city declines.

Iam writing about the Ithaca Gun Factory smokestack and the proposed public park on Lake Street.

I nd the proposed park to be little more than an public nuisance and urge that this area not be highlighted as a public and tourist attraction.

I strongly support keeping the smokestack as long as it is maintained and poses no safety issues. e smokestack, with the large ITHACA GUN logo is one of the few reminders that the City of Ithaca and this area was built by working people.

Ithaca was built by workers who dredged the creeks to contain ood waters, by those who toiled at the two glass companies, by the people who created bicycle chains, or made Ithaca clocks or airplanes. At one time workers in Ithaca built the village into a city with their labor and by creatively making improvements and they were able to live comfortably, raise families, see their children educated in our schools, support churches and fraternal lodges, enjoy our parks and open spaces.

Ithaca is famous for its quality of life, its educational institutions, for its full and rich cultural life led along the beauty of Cayuga Lake and the waters that feeds it. We celebrate all this, name streets for the famous, learn about the history of those who achieved fame in many elds.

We should also acknowledge that the word gun is not in itself bad, and the origin of the Ithaca Gun Company was to provide recreation and food enhancement. e Gun Company also, as did just about every manufacturing organization in the country, had government contracts during the two great wars of the 20th century.

To remove the unique smokestack because of the word gun is to attempt to erase the past, but in doing so, we also erase the working history of this community that allowed it to grow and prosper. We thrive on what the past has given us. To erase that is an attempt to cleanse our presence of a loaded word because of current di cult and tragic events, but it is also to erase the very past that has made the present possible.

Respectfully submitted for your consideration, Carol

Kammen