On Sunday, April 28, 2013, Council Wayne Hamer and members of the 4th and 3rd Ward Communities met at the Genesee/Lafayette Place Garden. We tried to make some sense out of the destruction of what we consider a Landmark. We comforted each other and spoke of proceeding forward through the healing process.
Committee People: Each City Ward is divided into 4 districts. This means that there are 32 people in our City charged with letting the City Council know our concerns. Each District has 2 Committee People, 1 male and 1 female. Make sure you make yourself known to them. When they report or communicate with the City Council, they must represent us, not just themselves. Our Committee people were recently elected in 2012. After recent inquiry, I learned that these positions are rarely publicized and one may garner a position with as little as 7 votes. More of us must begin to take note of this very important, but seemingly irrelevant position. Click here to find the names of 4th Ward Committee People.
We all agreed to focus on repairing the garden and not on retaliation. It was obvious that enough retribution and retaliation had already infected our community. We agreed to communicate with the men who have been caring for the place, to get more topsoil, to donate fertilizer, plants, seeds and manual labor. We also thought of ways to make the garden look more attractive.
we discussed communicating with the Englewood Historical Society in order to have it honored in some way so it will be protected in future. It IS one of those "Gateways into Englewood" that our City Leaders and the Developers are always discussing. This one just happens to be in the 4th Ward. Our 4th Ward "Gateways" must be kept beautiful also.
I had already gotten email messages from Mayor Frank Huttle III and Lynne Algrant. They had both visited the garden and seemed interested in helping. Residents report that Mayor Huttle visited them on his bicycle ride and asked about the garden. John and Esther Babb, Glen Coley (Who grew up in the 3rd ward), Devry Pazant who lives up the street, Georgette who lives across the street and several others whose names I did not write down dropped by to comment on the deed. I intentionally did not publicize the photos even though I really wanted to expose the underlying evil. The photo above shows that a good foot of topsoil has been removed from the garden. One cannot cover up the true intent here. No amount of glad ragging or speaking in muted tones may cover for that.
 |
| Democratic Committee Person for Ward 4, District 2. Take your concerns to him. Let him know that we all have legitimate concerns about the negligence in maintaining City property in the 4th Ward. |
Rickie Taylor, who had originally complained about the lack of fall clean up in the garden came out to speak to us. He lives one house away from the unkempt city lot on the opposite side of the street. He was very adamant that he has nothing against the garden. In fact, he said he likes the garden, respects the caretakers and had no idea that his complaints would cause such destruction.
He said that he was just trying to make the City clean up his street and force the gardeners who worked the plot last year understand that they must clean up the lot at the end of the season. That was actually a reasonable desire. He pointed to the vacant lot across the street. It was filled with litter, tall weeds, layers of dead leaves and poison ivy. We all decided that going forward we would communicate with each other before bringing in the City.
This day ended on a positive note. Mr. Hamer was to
speak to the City Leaders and the Community was rallying
to help preserve something we care about.
No comments:
Post a Comment