Wednesday, August 10, 2011

I'm sure it was an oversight.

It wasn't that long ago; I remember quite well when political pressure was exerted against the Urban Enterprise Association to tithe for various downtown beautification efforts, including at least one that necessitated planting seasonal flowers, not perennials, just in time for them to be trampled by Harvest Homecoming.

Fast forward a couple of years, and now there’s Keep New Albany Clean and Green, once a centerpiece of Irv Stumler’s ingloriously failed mayoral campaign, and now the city’s preferred extra-curricular means of collecting corporate grants and private donations to facilitate beautification.

It’s all well and good, although we’re still wondering precisely whose visions of beautification are being implemented, but perhaps at least the UEA is off the gardening hook, and will be allowed to go back to spending its budget for its own programs, rather than for superfluous outside requests (see "Dan Coffey is right: The UEA is not City Hall’s ATM" for further details).

Speaking of green, the Green Mouse says there’s something askew in these photos. One area was completed by the UEA prior to the advent of Clean and Green, which did the other.

Hint: Can you guess where the sign really should be, er, planted?




1 comment:

G Coyle said...

I am personally offended by each and every pick petunia that I see in downtown New Albany. Laughing to self... but the point is: Money spent on "beautification" should not be one-off "lip-stick on pigs" actions like these god-damned pink petunias. If we don't as a community learn to replant the native hardwood canopy, to create bio-swales, and other types of "green infrastructure", there won't be enough clean water left in our bio-system to water the poor street flowers.