http://www.rutlandherald.com/article/20150117/NEWS02/701179958
Published January 17, 2015 in the Rutland Herald
Cottage Street land suggested for new Springfield park
By SUSAN SMALLHEER
Staff Writer
SPRINGFIELD — Plans for a pocket park in the Union-Park Street neighborhood have taken a small but important step forward, supporters say.
The Springfield Planning Commission on Wednesday night recommended to the Select Board that the town pursue the idea of creating a small park on some town-owned land on Cottage Street.
The vacant lot was created last year when the town demolished a town-owned dilapidated house on the lot. The town had become the reluctant owner via a tax sale.
Springfield Zoning Administrator William Kearns said Thursday the planning board agreed to recommend to the Select Board that it cooperate with the neighborhood association to explore the possibility of developing a park.
The planning committee also set up a subcommittee to come up with criteria for such a park.
That committee will be chaired by Chuck Gregory, a recently appointed member of the board.
Kearns said that the town did not have criteria for establishing parks.
There are currently about four parks in the town including Riverside Park, The Commons, Freedom Park and Hartness Park.
Lori Claffee, a member of the Union Park Street Association, said that a recent suggestion to turn the lot into community gardens was a lower priority for people in the neighborhood. They would like a park, she said, particularly families with young children.
She said the Union Street School authorities discourage the use of the school grounds and playground by children after hours. And while the Riverside Middle School recreation area is open, it is a long walk from the Union and Park streets area.
“People with little kids want to be able to walk to a park,” she said.
Claffee said about 20 people attended the Wednesday night planning commission meeting to voice support of the small park. She said the group would be back before the Select Board on Jan. 26 for another discussion about the park.
Selectman George McNaughton said he attended the Wednesday night meeting as a interested person, and he said he hadn’t made up his mind about the creation of the park.
The town has advertised the lot for sale, he said, but has not received any interest.
The town spent about $20,000 removing asbestos from the building and then having it torn down.
McNaughton said he was determined that any suggestion from any of the new neighborhood groups created in Springfield get a serious hearing by the Select Board.
“Any proposal should get a really full consideration. This is the type of discussion we need,” he said, referring to the planning commission’s meeting.
McNaughton said that other neighborhood groups are keeping a close eye on the pocket park issue.
The town is pursuing getting dilapidated buildings either fixed or torn down, he said, to help turn things around in Springfield.
“The idea is to get them back on the tax rolls,” he said.
I have nothing against a small park for children, but to put in a small lot between two houses in a residential zone is silly!
ReplyDeleteHow would the people who want this park feel about having a park in an empty lot near them? Just because no one lives in these homes now doesn't make it right. If a park goes in that lot no one would ever buy in that neighborhood.
This is just a waste of time for our government officials who could be working on something to get Springfield back on its feet.
Pocket parks have been proven to increase the value of homes around them. When it is the neighbors who want them and the neighbors who care for and use them, it makes a neighborhood more cohesive. Neighborhoods that want them deserve a pocket park.
ReplyDeleteGot some data to prove that?
DeleteThat effect of pocket parks on physical activity: http://www.rand.org/pubs/external_publications/EP51654.html
DeleteAn overall view of the significance of pocket parks: http://www.kronkosky.org/research/Research_Briefs/Pocket%20Parks%20November%202011.pdf
Public health research indicates personal and social benefits and risks: http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/kbenfield/greening_vacant_lots_in_city_n.html
How architects view the pocket park concept: http://archnet.org/system/publications/contents/9998/original/DTP102383.pdf?1418679392
Keep in mind that these data refer in general to urban pocket parks.
I understand that pocket parks can work in urban areas where buildings once were, however in the middle of a very dense population of strictly residential homes, it will never work. I would never buy a house that had kids running around my property and I really don't think you would either.
DeleteI didn't see any data that "Pocket parks have been proven to increase the value of homes around them." This is the data that I was looking for.
Springfield needs revenue and not playgrounds and until this happens they shouldn't spend one penny on "pocket parks".
Here's a study exclusively on the positive effect pocket parks have on real estate values: http://fshs.org/proceedings-o/2007-vol-120/FSHS%20vol.%20120/316-319.pdf
DeleteIf you want to increase revenue for Springfield, it helps to attract people who will increase that revenue. Pocket parks can be one of the magnets.
Maybe asking those who live there what they think before they plan on the park might be a good idea.
ReplyDeleteI always like the idea of bringing more things into the community for kids to do but isnt that area already known as a "drug zone"? Is putting a park in the middle of that a good idea? Needles are found all over town, do we need to have another park for that activity to happen?
There is so much more they could be spending money on then a new park
When neighbors are invested in their neighborhood, they pay attention to what goes on. Just as you wouldn't want drug dealers conducting transactions on your lawn, you and your neighbors would not want them in the pocket park that you built and maintain.
DeleteUsda grant could utilized for this project. Also 4 vacant houses right around. The proposed spot is a great way to attract families to invest in them. If you didn't know drugs are scattered around but guess what im not giving up. I have lived near this property for thirty two years. Bring in the park and families. Nice way to better the neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteSilly would be putting a park up at the prison. We give our PD everthing internet in the patrol car with facebook. I think we can give our kids better access to a park.
ReplyDeleteisn't there a nice playground/park at union street school just down the road ?
ReplyDeleteThere is a school up the road, however there is a drug house right at the foot of the school driveway.
DeletePrecisely, 7:56! This is all pocket park puffery! Those of us who grew up in these neighborhoods played in school lots and the neatly maintained yards of our parents, friends, and neighbors. The pocket park propagandists are the usual cast of "imaginative" free-spenders who never saw a government program that they didn't like, because most of them aren't directly affected by the tax burdens that wasteful government spending imposes on the rest of us. A pocket park will just become another unused and unkempt piece of property that will become a liability to the neighborhood in which it's situated, with the neighbors ultimately complaining that it's not being maintained properly by the town. Instead of a "picture postcard", it will evolve into an "abandoned albatross". Rather of ladling out another heaping helping of tax dollars on yet another small scale boondoggle, the onus should be placed on the neighborhoods themselves to clean up their own yards and make them the real playgrounds for children.
ReplyDeleteThat's right, there is nothing stopping kids from playing on their own lawn...do they do it??? NO they don't because the parents are too lazy to clean up their yard or set-up a simple swing set. Let the government do it for them, typical mind set of parents today.
DeleteWhen we grew up, almost every one of us had a parent full-time in the home, friends who also had a parent full-time in the home and full-time parents who communicated with one another about what we were doing. We also were not born with a TV on all day long, so we learned to find our fun (and educational it was) outside rather than live captive to the boob tube. Things are different for today's kids.
DeleteWhen a neighborhood wants a pocket park well enough to commit to fighting for it and maintaining it-- and you can read some of the references I provided elsewhere-- you have a neighborhood that will stand by it. And it never hurts to have neighborhoods like that in town.
Chuck, have you visited the Cottage Street neighborhood? The place is a dump. Yards are overgrown. Houses are in disrepair. Crap everywhere in mild weather. There is no logic in thinking these residents would contribute anything to maintaining park.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with 10:12 more. I too grew up close by, walking past the neighborhood to attend Union Street School for six years. Then, weekends to ski the rope tow and summers to enjoy the town pool. None of us ever lamented about the lack of a pocket park. Also, I have a problem with the logic of spending other people's money to feel good about yourself.
Wow... You are the type of people we don't need in this community. I enjoy all the positive comment here and your comment I laugh at. I always need a good laugh. Thanks
DeleteI live on Cottage Avenue and if we want to better our neighborhood why do people who don't even live here have to talk crap! The park will help attract families to the vacant homes. The lot of land is really never going to sell with four vacant houses here. If this is shot down it will be a slap in the face to the many children that live on and around Cottage Avenue. They are the future invest in them. There are grants for such parks! Don't be so negative people. Think before you speak!
Deletetown should sell the land
DeleteAt last, someone boils it down to the typical libtard reason for everything "do it for the children".
Delete4:41-- You don't solve a problem by ignoring it. Why are yards overgrown? Is it because they're rental properties? Is it because the household has no income or so little that food and heat use it all up? Is it because individuals never learned that tidiness is a virtue? Is it because the residents have no hope?
ReplyDeleteIf you don't identify the causes of a problem, you will continue to have a crummy neighborhood.
I believe that people should not have to be poor, confused and powerless. That residents of the neighborhood have of their own volition decided to take steps indicates to me that they are motivated by hope for a better future-- which is about as American as you can get. They are to be commended, encouraged and supported.
Furthermore, the processes involved in getting a keeping a pocket park strengthen the positive bonds that make a society good. We need that.
Finally, thanks to Wall Street, the Springfield you grew up in no longer exists. It is nigh dangerous to assume things are going to go tomorrow the way they used to thirty years ago. There are no shop owners to make things right for us. We have to do it ourselves.
You got that wrong about Wall Street being the culprit for the demise of Springfield. It was the Union (UE Local 218) that drove all the Machine Shops out of Springfield.
DeletePeople like Local 218 Bus. Agent Jim Kane (later a National UE president), Francis Columbia, president of Local 258 at Cone Automatic Machine; Emmett Gavin, shop chairman at Bryant Grinder; and Robert Farnsworth, a J & L worker and union president.
These are some of the guys that ruined Springfield, VT
Accurate, first hand assessment. The story needs to be told how these men destroyed our community.
DeleteSorry, but the money of all those unions combined couldn't stand up against the cowboy capitalism of Wall Street. Had the American system of capitalism not pitted labor against management, we'd still have an industrial base both locally and nationally as strong as Germany's.
DeleteIf the workers had been culturally attuned to employee ownership and management, not only would it have occurred to them to buy the shops, but there would have been absolutely no incentive for them to lose their jobs for a profit. We'd still have Precision Valley.
To blame the unions for the demise is to indicate that one does not understand how bad Wall Street has been for us once regulation was removed.
You have to add Goldman to the list of crooks.
DeleteBravo, 6:41 pm.
ReplyDeleteTo all the people that say no to this! What are YOU doing to better this town??????
ReplyDeleteIt was not the unions that drove the shops out. There were other factors in the decline of those manufacturing businesses, combinations of internal and external factors. The shops didn't get driven "out", they were killed, right here. The union was negative and adversarial, but there were other problems too, and "Wall Street" - the shifting economy - was definetly one of them. All the U.S. machine tool builders were similarly impacted. The way Goldman Financial ran the businesses was open to serious question as well. When they took over Bryant, it was the world leader in grinding machine manufacturing, and despite the economic climate it was still profitable over a business cycle of several years. Goldman systematically gutted that company over a little more than a decade - it's hard not to believe that was their plan. They did the same to Fellows, J & L, and several other long established and respected manufacturers, such as Bridgeport. The effect of the union was slight by comparison.
ReplyDelete5:22 - how can the statements of an "Anonymous" poster possibly be taken as "accurate, first hand assessment"? What credibility underlies that claim?
ReplyDeleteI was there. I spent years as a union worker in the shop and later more years as an office worker. I was at Bryant through that company's decline until the last day that Bryant, Fellows, and J & L were officially open. The situation at Bryant was probably too complex and opaque for me to assess very accurately, but it can be verified that my assessment was first hand. As much as I disagreed with things the union sometimes did, those union officials did not ruin Springfield or destroy our community. You can point that finger elsewhere.
Now someone comes along years later and makes a claim lthat wasn't reported at the time the events happened, except privately between people with anti-union axes to grind, and they blame named individuals from the cover of internet anonymity. And someone else (maybe) says, yeah, that's accurate, that's first hand. Mind boggling.
Note, the references to Bryant above indicate the original Bryant Grinder, not it's re-implementation as part of Vermont Machine Tool, where I've worked since it bought the Bryant name and intellectual property.
I was there and the unions created the misnomer that everyone is created equal when it comes to job skills. The union thugs created a happy medium which was halfway between two extremes of workers. The highly skilled and talented workers were brought down, and the dead beats were brought up to create the medium line. This created an atmosphere of discontent. The talented worker saw the dead beats doing nothing so in turn they turned sour and stopped being productive. Over time nothing got done and shipments were not being met. Springfield manufacturing was doomed when they did that. The final nail was put in the coffin when Fellow Gear Shaper became unionized.
DeleteSo, 4:09, if I understand you, before the unions were voted in-- and if I'm not mistaken, this would have happened around 1938-- the "highly skilled and talented" were given jobs beneath their potential and deadbeats were given jobs beyond theirs?
DeleteNo, the unions started out with the task of helping the average worker get better wages and benefits and it worked for a while. Then as time went by the union just about took over and told management how to run their business. They controlled who would work in what area of the shop and controlled all the overtime. Supervisors had very little control over their workers and had to ask the union for permission do just about everything in the shop. I can remember being told by the union that if I didn't like what a manager told me to do I just needed to punch out on the job I was on and punch in on union time and talk to my steward. Every Friday the union picked who was going to work the weekend because they were the ones who controlled the overtime.
DeleteHours and hours were wasted by a lot of workers because of this.
You can believe it of not but this was the downfall of the machine shops in Springfield.
You repeat the same old anti-union rhetoric that's been around for decades, penned by authors from Ayn Rand on down. Maybe in a limited way it was true in some places. But that is not what happened in Springfield. You can't shoehorn what happened into that theory at all. People in the union, the office, and management worked together, worked hard evey day, for the most part very well, and for decades they made those businesses profitable together.
DeleteWas morale bad? Toward the end it sure was, as Goldman's repeated bloodletting took its toll. Nobody, especially in the office, knew from day to day if they'd have a job or not, regardless of how hard they worked. Sure shipments were missed - our last Bryant group photograph had something like 13 men and women in it, total. (None of them were named Anonymous, by the way.) Yet those last customers: Delphi, Barden, Dana, and the others, were pleased with the machines we shipped, despite their being late.
The union didn't cause those problems, didn't destroy morale or make the company incapable of continuing. As an engineer I worked alongside the union people most days, and I respect how the great majority of them conducted themselves in increasingly demanding and depressing circumstances.
Goldman would have achieved the same end, union or no. If they had been pirates who sailed up the river and pillaged the town, they couldn't have done it more effectively.
To be honest with you I had never heard about Ayn Rand. So I googled the name and what she said is exactly right on.
DeleteI said just about the same thing in one of my comments.
She said this: The unions purpose has never been to empower the average worker. “Unions and trade associations,” she wrote, “are not directed against employers or the public but against the best among their own members.” The goal has never been about “raising the weak in any way whatever, but simply forcing the strong down to the level of the moron.”
And that is exactly what UE 218 did to Springfield and you as an engineer fell for not just the hook, line and sinker, but the whole fishing pole.
So, how did you arrive at your own insight about unions before you found out that Ayn Rand agrees with you?
DeleteI worked in Springfield during it's hay day and watched as the union destroyed the moral of the most talented workers this country has ever had. I was one of those workers and wished that I would have done more to stop the brainwashing of the low IQ workers who assisted in the destruction of some great manufacturing companies.
DeleteHere is a list of the non-productive workers who assisted in destroying precision valley:
The Bryant negotiating committee consisted of Brahm Muther, Mike Woychosky, John Claflin, Ron Gilbert, Chris Coughlin, Dave Hryckiewicz, Russ Abbott, Ron Corliss, and John Water.
The Fellows negotiating committee consisted of Paul Spicer, Ray Stocker Jr., Francis Bushaw, Ed Lohutko, Don Twitchell, Alvin Anderson, Bill Simoneau and Brian Nelson.
Both committees were assisted by International Rep. David Cohen and Field Org. Rachel Clough.
I'm sorry, did I give the impression that I subscribed to union propaganda? No way; in my book Marx was as wrong as Rand. What went down in the Goldman shops wasn't according to union dogma; any resemblance was coincidental. But it wasn't according to anti-union dogma either. People just went to work and tried to make it meaningful to their lives, though they were forced, at least on paper, to be party to an artificial ideological battle between the rabid socialists and the greedy insane.
DeleteWhile there were a few militants from either camp who tried to project their dichotomous beliefs into the world around them, most people didn't go in for either side of that debate: they paid lip service to get by, and otherwise just put up with the distortion as they went about their day-to-day jobs. But that's what ideologues do, they get people to do just that.
As business worsened year by year, employees naturally looked for reasons. The prevailing opinion from union people, office people, supervisors, and the few managers who discretely opined, was that Goldman Financial, for whatever reasons - miscalculation, incompetance, malign intent, whatever - was the main cause of the business' decline. It wasn't seen as the union's fault then, nor was it Goldman's fault because the union said so. People could see the obvious with their own eyes.
Incidentally, it's charitable of you, ANONYMOUS 12:28, to refer to low-IQ people and name so many names.
You've hit on a point most people don't want to think about, Mr. Caron:
DeletePeople do not like having to mistrust others. Human societies flourish when we know that everybody else is doing their part as well. We don't want to lose sleep worrying over whether our mechanic is ripping us off or the milk we buy is contaminated or somebody's trying to destroy our job.
Which is why in the declining years of Precision Valley, the ones who were left to die in the final charge rode on nevertheless. They lived by a social code that was smashed by powerful people who viewed factories as playing chips.
My dad lived his entire work life with that mentality, and all it got him was laid off when he got too crippled to work, five years before he was eligible for Social Security. He made his boss a millionaire, so at least somebody died happy.
You are getting closer to understanding how it went down during that time period. Goldman only got involved after the Union completely destroyed the will of the working force of Precision Valley. The owners prior to Goldman taking over finally had had enough and knew the end was near.
DeleteSometimes I wonder how some people of that era can sleep at night.
How interesting that someone without the guts to sign his own name (12:28 above) slanders by name some of the most productive employees at Bryant, those who ran the highest production and quality averages within their departments, simply because they were part of UE 218's successful contract negotiating teams. Those men were chosen by the members of their bargaining groups to spear head negotiations which maintained wages and benefits, especially company paid Blue Cross Blue Shield medical insurance, for everyone in their bargaining groups, including those who thought they were special.
DeleteThe negotiating teams were wonderfully supported by union membership, which at Fellows in 1994 won a 41 day winter strike (the Winter War of 94) to maintain wages and benefits, which Goldman wanted to reduce.
Those union members who thought they were "special", who did not think they needed union representation, who actually believed they were superior to everyone else in the plant, were persons who were the first to attempt to cut special deals with the company, yet were also the first to run to the union when their efforts back fired and they needed to be bailed out.
When Bryant sold mechanically controlled grinding machines, 40% of the product's cost was direct labor. After it redesigned its product line and concentrated on selling electronically controlled machines, the direct labor cost was reduced to 15%. The cost of purchased parts soared, and the price of the finished product soared as well.
Goldman believed he could treat his vendors like dirt, and when he found himself reduced to paying cash on delivery for parts, he crumbled. When he filed for bankruptcy in Delaware, he was 127 million in debt.
The creditor list was revealing. Much of the debt had nothing to do with manufacturing machine tools, but was owed to yacht companies in Asia. Goldman had used Springfield's machine tool businesses as cash cows that he milked to exhaustion, and never gave a damn about Springfield or people employed in the companies he controlled. Goldman even failed to remit employees' medical and dental co-payments, made out to their employers, to insurance companies.
When the Fellows auction was held, the contents of the office of the Vice President of Finances were sold for $60.00. Along with all the tables, chairs and other furniture, was a four drawer lateral file cabinet filled with the financial records, executive personnel contracts (Swift's salary was $90,000., a pittance even then for a CEO), bonus schedules (Swift never earned one), and executive meeting notes of the Goldman Group. Nothing had been removed, not even the social security numbers of employees ....a major felony. A diligent prosecutor would have had a field day, but no one in the FBI or Vermont State criminal justice system was even interested in reviewing the files for evidence of fraud or other crimes. The Vermont Attorney General said did not have the assets to take on a major corporation, and did not want the files. At the least he could have convicted members of the Goldman team for theft of services, since they had been contracting for goods and services without intent of paying for anything, including charges for hospitality/restaurant costs. What could anyone have expected from Montpelier, which despite having an arrest warrant for David Goldman regarding the illegal disposal of toxic waste at Roundtop Mt. in Plymouth, had pumped millions of dollars into the Goldman Group once they had taken over Springfield's manufacturing base.
It is delusional to blame the union for the failure of Springfield's machione tool industry. It was destroyed by David Goldman, a person who was intent upon extracting the most cash possible in the shortest possible time, a person too stupid to realise he was killing his own golden goose.
Chris, ignore the anonymice. My guess is they are people who would lose a lot of status in the community, among their friends and in their club if people knew who they are.
DeleteYou, however, have a very, very powerful educational tool at hand. Springfield people would have a whole new attitude toward unions and Wall Street if they knew what you know.
Chuck Gregory makes us all laugh with his incessant leftist ideology and generous servings of pure sophistry! Any claims regarding that neighborhood “maintaining it” (a pocket park) are absolute bovine excrement. It has been accurately pointed out that this neighborhood is already a shambles, with few residents having the common decency, pride, or self-respect to keep their own yards and homes presentable. That evidence alone is more than enough to prove that they lack the commitment to maintaining public property when they won’t even do so with the private property they inhabit. There are probably three or four town properties already within approximately a one mile radius of that neighborhood – well within walking distance and most certainly within driving distance that provide recreational open space. The fact that these residents are not already availing themselves of those resources tells us that all of this clamor for a “pocket park” is more about “want” than actual need. And it is being led by those who: a) won’t be paying for it; b) won’t be maintaining it; and c) won’t ultimately be accountable for the tax dollars wasted on such a folly.
ReplyDeleteIt’s time for Springfield to get its head out of the clouds (or wherever it may actually be) and focus on restoring and maintaining the community’s basic needs such as roads, bridges, sidewalks, water and sewer systems, and police, fire, and public works departments rather than squandering scarce resources on pocket park pettiness.
2:28, What percentage of those properties are rentals and how many are owner-occupied? What are the average and median incomes of the owner-occupied households? What do the answers to those two questions suggest in regard to the condition of the neighborhood?
DeleteIn addition: What is the maximum walking time that will assure visits to a park? How many Springfield residents live within that distance of our existing parks? And what would you do to revive the spirits and tap the potential of neighbors to turn around a neighborhood?
2:28 all it takes is a hand full of neighbors to start to do a good thing and lead by example.... What are you doing to better this town?
DeleteA lot of us where there . Some union guy at Fellows turned the lights out on whole building and M. Swift who was in a meeting at the time, directed those there to close the plant. Which became the end. He had had enough.
Deletewhen was this, 7:08? 1943? 1982?
DeleteThe year was 2002. Mr. Swift was giving the union a chance to realize that the two companies could continue to make a profit and provide good paying jobs. Swift played hard ball. He was just a contractor to bring the two companies together and to bring them up to date in the computer area (maybe to quickly since it cost big bucks to do so). When the doors were closed Bryant had a $40 million dollar backlog. We had a huge Ford order. Boy were they pissed. I imagine some UE people considered the whole deal a Victory. And that 9:15 PM, is when $hit hit the fan for the future of Springfield. And for whatever reason, last year, Springfield decided to dump $50K into fixing the roof on the old Bryant building. I worked there and the roof fixen was an every summer project. I guess what happened back in 2002 gave some brain damage.
DeleteToo bad nobody ever reported the meat of that story. What were the stumbling blocks between the parties, etc.
DeleteBryant's huge backlog was gained through cutting prices to impossibly thin margins. Management used this backlog to leverage even huger loans with which they acquired the Bridgeport company. They validated the price cuts by gaining painful concessions from vendors and by planning to sub out most of the machining and sub-assembly. By subbing out machining they eliminated union machinists and non-union manufacturing engineers. They neglected to make up for this in the purchasing department - through which the sub-contract work had to go - causing delays and further inflating the backlog. I speculate they wanted to fluff up the backlog to make the business look good to prospective buyers. The union was merely a fly in the ointment - Goldman could try minimize the need for labor but they needed UE for assembly and test until they could sell the business. Goldman Group's house of cards collapse in 2002 was due to huge debt and unpaid vendors. It is amusing to know it was accelerated by a UE brown out. We had a great run. Now let's move on.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the critics of wasteful spending have struck a nerve with Chuck Gregory. He’s resorting once again to the usual tactic of obfuscation and diversion via endless rhetorical and irrelevant questions. The fact of the matter is that many residents have little respect for the property in which they live nor the motivation to utilize the town’s current resources. If these neighborhoods were to demonstrate ample effort to beautify their own residences/yards, they could solve this entire matter on their own problem without any government assistance. The resulting enhancements would provide clean, safe, and attractive yards for play and recreation while improving the overall aesthetics of the neighborhood. Instead of the townspeople writing endless checks for dubious little pocket park pet projects, it’s high time the residents of these areas got themselves off the couch, picked up a rake/broom/shovel/paint brush and got to work improving the place(s) in which they live (and want to play).
ReplyDeleteI think we can move on, if what you're saying is, "Unions are evil"
Delete7:45 Why do you hide behind your words? Nothing about your post is positive or polite. The meaning of sticking to topic means just that. Your brain is so scattered on how to make people feel bad about themselves. I bet all you do is sit behind your anonymous post and think you are making a name for youself. (Anonymous). Mr. A can you just do 2 things for me take your post and do something creative and positive. By the way I will be the first resident to donate money and time to this project.
ReplyDeleteNate Parker
Yay, Nate!
DeleteNate, you're obviously a product of an overabundance of "self-esteem training", courtesy of today's public education system. Time to grow some thicker skin and get a reality check. Singing kumbaya, waving pom poms, and making apologies for the lack of effort being exerted by residents in maintaining their homes and yards won't solve the root cause problem. Nor will a pocket park. But here's a possible win-win for the town and that neighborhood, Nate. Why don't you (and similarly inclined pocket park advocates) purchase the property, build that neighborhood a nice park, and pay the property taxes on it?
DeleteI can see it now, a big sign saying: COTTAGE STREET POCKET PARK" dedicated and paid for by Nate Parker and ...
DeleteOuch, Nate! You've just been pwn'd by the best Springfield has to offer! I guess you shouldn't have asked for constructive suggestions. I'm sure that you will find a large number of neighbors to pitch in and make the park a reality-- and other neighborhoods are likely to follow suit-- pocket parks are very attractive features for home buyers.
DeleteHas a good ring to it but I'm not much for back patting. Oh good job me! I would be more in favor of naming a park after a local fallen soldier. So PLEASE don't put words in my mouth. We have a lot of work before naming something that is not yet created but in the works.
ReplyDeleteNate