This is in response to Mark LaFlamme’s recent column bashing Lewiston.

I wish the “local college” student’s mother had called me instead. I would have described the transformation of downtown L-A that we have seen in our nine years here.

I would have recommended that her son eat and listen to quality music at Guthrie’s, dine on exquiste food at Fish Bones and Fuel, attend a Fish Bones art show, or bring a friend to Gippers or Antonio’s Deli.

I would have told her about world-class productions at The Public Theatre, and state-of-the-art medicine at the hospitals.

I would have encouraged her son to shop at the Farmer’s Market in Kennedy Park, and connect to this community through the numerous organizations that do fabulous work daily to help improve the lives of all of L-A’s citizens.

I take particular exception to LaFlamme’s gratuitous use of Morgan McDuffee’s murder to sell his Lewiston-as-hopeless story. To trivialize Morgan’s life, the tragedy and pain of Morgan’s family, friends, the Bates and Lewiston communities, seized the lowest road available.

What many of us learned most about this town, the huge heart and compassion of its residents, was through that unimaginable loss.

It is much easier to rely on old stereotypes and highlight dark episodes for support than to admit that LaFlamme’s characterization just doesn’t fit anymore. He has invested so much in his dark underbelly depiction that he is missing the positive right in front of him.

Peter Lasagna, Auburn

Lacrosse coach, Bates College