(UPDATE) Another thing to fight; I'm so tired
(UPDATE: They've already begun tearing down the trees; someone posted photos earlier today on FB. The public hearing wasn't scheduled until Feb. 12. THIS IS NOT DEMOCRACY. I still intend to write angry letters to the city council and mayor. I can still make noise, be a PITA and waste their time!)
A week or two ago I learned about a plan to build a Costco in my husband's college town, but at the expense of tearing out part of one of the parks that we often visit. I have a lot of friends in the area but I only heard about this through one of the birding groups I follow on FB. That suggests that they were hoping to sneak this through quietly without anybody noticing until they start destroying the woods when it's too late. (Nothing these assholes do would surprise me anymore. They're also losing the Electrolux plant, putting 900 people out of work next year, but that's the company's fault, not Mayor Shitbag.)
Now I'm all in favor of having a Costco closer to us; it would save us a drive to the twin cities to go to one and I'd still like to get a job there some day (maybe). But there are multiple other places it could be built where there are old buildings just standing empty. There's also a skate park there which is only 8 years old, which would also have to be relocated--to another area of the park, of course!! I understand why they want to put it at the intersection of two busy highways, but the point is why destroy the natural beauty of a park when there are other perfectly good locations available!
City arguments offered to support the transaction :
• Proceeds will go towards maintenance of neighborhood parks
• Projected to add $110,000 yearly to tax rolls and $200,000 yearly to sales tax revenue.
• Will clean up garbage on north end of park, including encampments by homeless people.
• Skate board park can be “reconfigured.”
• Will enhance visibility of Heritage Park, which mayor considers “underutilized.”Citizen arguments for saving the woods and siting Costco elsewhere:
• Poor and short-sighted public policy to sell off parkland. Community priorities (even parkland purchases) should be funded in other ways.
• Slippery slope leads to sale of other public lands and more commercial development of parkland.
• Instead, infill brownfield land -- already destroyed, degraded, abandoned sites and existing concrete deserts.
• The relationship between human well-being - both physical and mental health – and green space is extensively well-documented.
• A vital aspect of quality of life.
• Place for physical activity and social interaction.
• Place for mental and spiritual restoration and de-stressing.
• The woods buffers the park and museum from the noise and unsightliness of 2nd St. S.
• This woodland is known as an urban oasis for migratory birds following the Mississippi River Flyway
• Acts to cool the urban environment.
• Reduces storm water run-off.
Bollocks. I've never seen any homeless people there, and I know there's an issue with homeless people in the area (shocker).
The good news is there's still time to fight this, although Mayor Shitbag expects the Costco to be built and open in time for the Christmas season. Good thing I've got nothing better to do with my time right now than write angry letters. Sigh.
Comments
why destroy the natural beauty of a park when there are other
perfectly good places to build? Just because they want to and can. Destroying things is a favorite pastime of the rich and powerful for some psychotic reason. The owners of the vacant buildings might be getting some type of tax write off if they're kept empty.
They're telling you that after it's built there is going to be lots of extra money for funding other projects, but how big of a tax break is Costco going to get first which will come out of the community funding?
Write the letters and good luck with this.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Yep.
It won't do a damn bit of good, other than a record of yet another angry voice of opposition.
Might as well channel all my negative energy and ire into raging at the people fucking everyone else over.
This shit is bananas.
I think some of the
older land-sites and buildings might have some pollution liabilities attached, which could explain their lack of development activity. But I'm sure developers can figure out how to socialize that cost.
dfarrah
I thought Costco was one of the 'good guys'.
What good are wages or jobs when there's no environment left to live in?
Modern education is little more than toeing the line for the capitalist pigs.
Guerrilla Liberalism won't liberate the US or the world from the iron fist of capital.
I thought so too.
Probably made them an offer they couldn't refuse.
And the REALLY stupid thing? The article I read said the area would have to be re-zoned too. Sure, let's just waste even MORE time and resources!
This shit is bananas.
And it will be.
Re-zoned, that is.
Same thing that happened in Burlington with the 14-story monstrosity.
Planning Board Advances Zoning Change for Town Center Project
Burlington PAC will Push Zoning Change, Bonding
Key phrase: the mayor's priorities. You know, the guy who previously was a real estate developer.
We residents essentially had zero power to prevent spot-zoning, which then paved the way for a 14-story hulk comprising market-rate housing, retail shops and office space financed by TIF funding. Oh, but the project is going to solve the affordable housing crisis in Burlington!
Miro Weinberger, our own corporate sellout.
Sorry for this bit of a hijack. It's all to say that I completely relate to your rage, and feelings of helplessness.
The developers want money.
And the only way to get it is to develop.
They own the mayors and city councils nationwide.
I find it so cute that city officials across the nation act so concerned about gentrification, when they know damn well the policies and practices that create it. (a bit off topic here, but related as to who really runs the cities)
dfarrah
Greed corrupts
Costco may have been a good idea when they started, but the greedheads are running (ruining) it now.
That said, our local Costco did put forth some effort last mallard breeding season to protect a mother mallard who had very unwisely laid her eggs in one of the tree-spaces in the parking lot. They had signs up and cones out, and most people were careful (as well as curious).
There is no justice. There can be no peace.
Funny, I just got back from the dentist
and drove by a park I'd never really visited but had seen for years. All ripped up now, God only knows what they're putting in there. I'm sure that land is worth a small fortune as well. There are now so many new condo's and apartments I really almost don't recognize that area any more. And all to make a buck, disgusting.
My condo borders some wetlands, and the city has actually reclaimed a few sites that were at one time leveled for something, but I start to wonder how long that lasts. There are spectacular views from part of that wetlands, and I imagine there are lots of greedheads slathering to get at it. Every time an older house is ripped out, at least one if not multiple McMansions go in. Most of them kinda tacky looking to me.
Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur
I think I'd like to drive away from the Twin Cities,
what with all the Super Bowel nonsense.
Good luck with the letter writing. You'd think there would be enough brownfield sites to accommodate a Costco.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Sounds like a great idea.
Perhaps a meetup is in order? Too bad it's so cold again....
There are more than enough brownfield sites, and areas for development on the west end of town. The old empty Walmart is an eyesore.
This shit is bananas.
Yep!
Cold enough that I didn't feel like going out to fly the standard of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany.
Sad times.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
I wish that people would boycott the super bowl
The PTB are not even trying to hide the fact that we live in a police state. But what gets me is that people are going along with it. If you have to jump through long lines to just get to the security lines then you have willingly given up your 4th amendment right to be free in this country.
Police to use thousands of cameras, secret playbook to keep fans safe at Super Bowl
This has nothing to do with keeping anyone safe from a possible terrorist attack, it's just further conditioning for people to do what they're told when they are told to do it.
Imagine if people said hell no I'm not going to play this kabuki false theater game any longer. How much longer would they continue playing their security games? What will it take to get people to wake the Hell up and quit letting them do this to us? The second amendment gun people won't let anything happen to it, yet for some reason their 4th amendment rights isn't as important to them. Why? This type of theater isn't because the police have received a credible threat to the country, as the article states, they have been planning this for years. How much money is that going to cost the city when the money could be spent on schools, roads or other infrastructure?
I stopped flying when they created the TSA and then stopped going to baseball games when they started having people go through security lines. This was a big deal for me because I've been a baseball fan since I was 3 and went to games with my granpoppa.
Land of the Free and Home of the Brave my ass!
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
And don't even think of kneeling during the anthem
This is not what freedom looks like, don't you know? Everyone must stand and pay homage to our Brave men and women in the military who are risking their lives to keep us safe and our lives free. Gawd the irony.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
It's not so much the security/surveillance
(which is awful, I agree), it's just the happy/clappy stuff 'we all love the giant tapeworm that is the Super Bowel' rubbish we've been subjected to by the local MSM for the last few months.
Shoot me now.
Gëzuar!!
from a reasonably stable genius.
Out of the 50-some
Superbowls I've watched
six. Maybe seven. Tops.
And that includes the first one.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Three weeks to Spring
Training.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Have a Costco chicken while you wait
thanks, I'm just piling on.
Costco Wants to Build the Largest Chicken Factory Farm in America—and Local Residents Are Fighting Back
Chicken fight! I'll bet my 50 cents on the factory farm. The "good guys". lol
Costco Plans Fowl Project in Nebraska
punny!
Similar scene sparked the 2013 Turkish Uprising at Gezi Park
Sad to hear. It's the same the world over. Which makes me think at some point it'll be an international revolution, which is what the IWW and Socialists/Communists at the turn of last century fought for and partially succeeded with. Folks all over the globe are hip to the 99% vs. 1% paradigm.
Neoliberalism is a worldwide poison, its obsequiousness to monopoly business and oligarchs masquerades as "progressive" and the domain of a "meritocracy" of the best and brightest. Keep the masses dazzled with more and more cheap disposable trinkets, the whole thing designed to deaden the pain from the soul-sucking jobs they're forced into by an austerity economy in which they feel lucky just to have "benefits."
Looking around for some news pieces from back then (June 2013)...
From the Socialist Worker, "Assault on Gezi Park sparks furious protests"
Some dude wrote up a really nice blog on the connection between Taksim Sq and Zucotti Park.
The whole scene was so beautiful (a photojournalist friend of ours went over a couple of times to document the scene), and the protesters set up camps, calling themselves Occupy Gezi. Twitter was loaded with images. Here's a photo album. There was one amazing picture that stays in my mind from there, in which the protesters converted a bus stop to a utopian living space.
Much longer piece at the OWS site.
As always Carlin nails it and it never gets old, "The mall is where Americans get to satisfy their two most prominent addictions, shopping and eating."
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
Occupy
It would be fun to see a protest there, but I don't think enough people around here give enough of a fuck about it.
Come to think of it I have seen homeless people in that area, but they're always on the opposite corner, on the other side of the road. Shit, even homeless people have more respect for these areas than the psychopaths that be.
This shit is bananas.
I can almost goddarned
guarantee CostCo made
a deal for that specific
location before anything else
was agreed upon, and unless they
get that location there will be no store.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
It’s so sad to witness the degradation of nature,
especially first-hand. Displacing life in any form is such a tragedy, especially when there are other alternatives. It’s like people are digging their own graves, mindlessly.
Here, locally, people sometimes write very creative and affecting hand-written signs to bring attention to those kinds of plans and issues that the council is considering. At least all who drive by these signs are repeatedly reminded of the potential tragedy. Sometimes it makes a difference.
That's a great idea.
@Daenerys
What if you organized a group of people to pepper the park with such signs? Sure, they'd get ripped down but you could replace them ... over and over.
It might be too late for that.
See update.
This shit is bananas.
It always blows my mind
...to see a new shopping complex being built as two decline and sit vacant. Having an economy based on unlimited growth on a finite planet is insane.
Good luck with your effort to stop your loss of a park for more opportunities to purchase and consume ever more resources.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
updated
How does one publish an update so it goes to the top of the essay list again?
JFC what's even the point of having a public hearing AFTER they've already started the demolition?? *RAGE*
This shit is bananas.
You know what Joni Mitchell said
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa
Big Yellow Taxi
was the first reference that came to my mind. Some things never change, sadly.
[video:https://youtu.be/N3HbrfV0hJM]
Greed and willful ignorance is/are killing
the planet and we are just sitting on our asses and allow it to happen. The shame falls particularly hard on those of us who know how bad it is and do nothing. I include myself in that group and I think about it often.
Our ‘betters’ are killing us in other ways too. Our wars and military operations all over the planet will eventually bring real war to our own country, to our own soil. Eventually paybacks and blowback will occur.
But back to the topic under discussion:
Pity our children and tneir children. This is the world they will ‘inherit’.
NOTE: facts 2 and 6 are the same. Just saying.
EDIT: typo (of course) and added a sentence.
I'm tired of this back-slapping "Isn't humanity neat?" bullshit. We're a virus with shoes, okay? That's all we are. - Bill Hicks
Politics is the entertainment branch of industry. - Frank Zappa