Garden an asset to neighborhood

Wait, let me be certain I understand.

Cedar Rapids wants to be a Blue Zone community and yet when Edward Thornton takes the time and effort to engage in the healthful and stress-relieving activity of gardening by taking a vacant unproductive city lot and turning it into a bountiful and beautiful garden, he is hassled by city officials? What's wrong with this picture? ('Compromise allows urban gardener to keep growing - for a while,” Aug. 5).

Thornton took the initiative to turn empty unused city-owned land and create a thriving 'paradise of produce,” the bounty of which he shares with others.

Kudos to Thornton for taking this initiative and for the time and energy he invested in turning something unused into something productive and beneficial. Jeers to city officials who lack the creativity, imagination and vision to encourage healthful and productive ways to use vacant, unused city property and instead attempt to discourage the efforts of others who do.

Floyd Sandford

Cedar Rapids