Actions speak louder than words. It's a saying we often hear, to the point that we occasionally lose sight of its meaning. In the case of Mayor Kevin Dumas, his actions, taken while others have simply spoken their intent to act, show that he is, indeed, committed to improving Attleboro.

When the easiest path with the beleaguered, and grossly indebted, Industrial Business Park project would have been to allow it to fall into foreclosure, Mayor Dumas and his administration instead worked tirelessly to organize the project, and were able, shortly after taking control of the project, to find a company willing to do business in the IBP.

We're only 40 or so days from that purchase and sale agreement being finalized, and the administration already has another business interested in purchasing land in the IBP. The mayor accomplished in months that which the ARA could not accomplish over the course of years, despite the fact that this is what the ARA was charged to do.

We remember when Attleboro's downtown was vibrant, with interesting shops and a quaint feel. For the last 20 years or so, this has not been the case; the downtown is dreary. Empty storefronts abound.

The mayor's sidewalk and street lamp project is a first step to restoring some of the quaint feel to the downtown. While the mayor cannot fill privately-owned storefronts with stores and restaurants, his administration's efforts with Park Street Pizza and the property that Cobalt Construction is rehabbing show that he is making his best effort to improve the options in the downtown. Once business owners see other businesses doing well in the downtown, the idea is that others will follow. Without the mayor's efforts, this possibility does not even exist. As property owners whose land lies in the path of the downtown revitalization project, we have found the mayor to be responsive, professional, and forthright in all of our exchanges with him. As most people know, relationships change over time, and the stress of a project teetering on bankruptcy may play into how two individuals respond to one another. We think that the citizens of Attleboro should look not at the change in one man's opinion of the mayor that Jim Hand pointed out in his column Oct. 24, but at the mayor's actions to improve the city. Those actions alone should do the talking.

TRIP RICHARDSON, Jonathan Richardson, and Amy McCoy live in Attleboro.