In what some are calling a historic moment for Floyd County, some of our elected leaders have chosen a path of long-term vision and agreed to work together to bring citizens the county's first publicly financed recreational facility since the 1960s, a facility that with care will become the cornerstone in a foundation for downtown revitalization, smarter growth, and a new era of progressive building for a prosperous, sustainable future. On the advice of County Commissioners, the Floyd County Council yesterday voted 5-1 in favor of committing $137,000 for 16 years to the Scribner Place redevelopment project.
You're welcome, Larry.
It seems that after three years of often contentious negotiations, the only real debate left was why county citizens should help finance basic city services, a fair question given our City Council's recent vote to use previously committed economic development dollars for a wholly symbolic, temporary non-solution to the city's current sanitation woes. Apparently, reneging on your own commitment while simultaneously asking/demanding others to join in it isn't good strategy.
Luckily, Mayor Garner was at the helm to explain the seemingly unexplainable, assuring County Council members that city government is indeed committed to working with the county to make the project happen, regardless of Coffey, Schmidt, Price and Kochert's incessant linking of the project to any other totally unrelated barbecued bologna-fueled opposition that they can come with to avoid having to develop ideas of their own.
It seems that, too, may be changing, however. The Mayor, showing more patience and deference to the democratic process than should be expected of any reasonable person given the usual fruitless shenanigans of the gang, has agreed to postpone signing a contract with Industrial Disposal for a couple of weeks to allow the council even more time to refine and present their "better way" of handling sanitation and other city business.
Insert your own "ball and court", "shoe and foot", or "money and mouth" cliché here, but the time has come for the excuses to end and the full force of whatever intellect the Gang of Four possesses to reveal itself in the form of a viable plan that doesn't simply continue to subsidize a failing operation but corrects it in total.
Given the twenty years most of the gang has had to work on it, I don't recommend that other cliché, either, lest Ben Hershberg's next story be written about the collective asphyxiation of an entire city.
Floyd commits to Scribner Place by Ben Zion Hershberg, The Courier-Journal (short shelf life)
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2 comments:
Damn Spam! It's everywhere.
Not anymore.
The deleted comments above, as Rick points out, were spam.
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