In a message dated 12/20/01 9:13:30 PM Central Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
<< The election is over and it's time to mend fences. Forgive but don't
forget:
The real lesson of the last campaign is that you don't build a city by
shutting doors and locking people out. You build a city by reaching across
all those old lines that are supposed to separate people. With problems
this large, we don't have people to waste.
>>
Keith says; So true RT. And for every candidate who was shut out at
convention time, there were scores, even hundreds of ordinary citizens who
could not get a fair hearing and a fair shake with their neighborhood needs.
Gritty and more mundane ways of "locking people out" such as not allowing
reasonable site plan compromises for neighborhood small businesses. Also,
condemning, boarding up and knocking down our city's affordable housing
stock, was literally "shutting doors and locking people out." A practice that
to the bitter end of her term, Jackie Cherryhomes continues with and is
supported in by a majority of the current City Council. I am referring to the
Boarded fourplex south of West Broadway that was not allowed to be rehabbed
into two townhouse style homes at a "249 hearing" just days ago. This project
was promoted by Robert Woods, with private financing and subject to the most
stringent City code compliance every step of the way. Oh no, lesson not
learned, no message heard by Jackie and the other council members who voted
for demolition. And that demolition and shlepp to the landfill will be at tax
payer expense. Attention; Natalie Johnson Lee, call me and I will chain
myself to the building till you can give the project a Fair hearing. Or maybe
I can get Leslie Davis, Earth Protector, and fighter for free speech at the
mayoral candidates "debates," to fasten himself to the roof to conserve a
couple dwellings. Remember, He climbed and fastened himself to those trees to
show us that free speech was not allowed to all the mayoral candidates. I
would have liked to have heard his ideas then since the debates were so
incredibly polite and boring. And by the way RT., there was silent and
passive duplicity by ALL the "big four" mayoral candidates in the silencing.
"Forgive but don't forget." You said it! But, fair enough RT., let us move on
to a better way. I mean it too.
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