Is this Jaak Järve the same one who organizes community Golf Tournaments, Chess Club matches, Artist Society exhibitions and various other community events, most of which benefit from generous financial support provided by these same community organizations?

I agree that a solution at 958 is ideal and that we mustn't rush into a deal that doesn't fit. I'll likely vote against the Madison plan.

However I have yet to see any realistic, organized proposals & plans from "the community."

Is there a workable counter-proposal?

I would advise getting our sitt together rather than railing against the successful organizations that do (ETCU, ESK & TC) a la Eestlase lemmiktoit.

You make good points.

I think people were hopeful that the four organization group would come up with a good plan for Madison, but the cards were stacked against them by the organized groups in the Madison area and with the limited space they had to build on (footprint and height) permitted by the city.

The four group board should step back and say, hey, this is not working – that the city and special interest groups have limited us too, too much and it is not good business sense to continue on Madison. After the townhall meeting last Wednesday, my read of the mood in the community is that they would rather keep the present house and either fix it up or semi-rebuild it while keeping heritage elements (by the way, Kongats’ 18 M estimation was for an entirely new building, there are cheaper ways to do it). It can be done tastefully, creatively, and it can be an architectural marvel.

MY SINCERE FEAR IS THAT THIS FOURSOME GROUP OF ORGANIZATIONS IN THEIR RUSH WILL SELL THE ESTONIAN HOUSE FOR A SONG. This will come back to haunt us and we will ask, how could they have done this to our community? A developer will buy the 958 Broadview property cheap and will build a swank building with a beautiful view to the ravine in its place. They will be laughing at our narrow-mindedness.

Let us be the ones to build that building at 958 Broadview with creativity!