Last night, I heard two hours of education about the Harrison Square project. Comments and questions followed a brief presentation. If you could slice the room into two halves it was young vs old in the determination if we see progress and economic development or if we wait until we can find something different than a ball field. The conversations began at 630 p.m. Commentary ranged from put up a string of motels instead of one hotel or.. the next generation must have something to wrap their arms around in order to call Fort Wayne home. One man, who has been a season ticket for many, many years, refuses to go to any games if the baseball stadium is moved downtown. Sighting traffic, parking and a strong opinion that the old ball diamond is just perfect. I would assume just like his first set of reading glasses, or training wheels on his bike. There would be no reason to consider changing anything, anytime. Oh, which lead to one gentlemen saying change the downtown streets to allow for bikes to go from place to place rather than cars. Bike paths throughout downtown will save our community and retain our youth (YUP!). There were people who stood up and said really inane comments about lets put a big roof over the ball diamond to "well there are only a couple games in the spring, summer and fall...who needs it". However, the comment that was the very last one shared, and happened to be one of my favorites, but I have to say first, that around 8 pm, many of the older people got up and left. HOW Fort Wayne is that!?! "Mildred, grab my cane, we got to get home - we will be out on the streets past 8:00 p.m. We are taking our life in our own hands!!!!". No, the killer comment was simply that, Harrison Square will not allow wheel chairs, parking etc. If we "mark his words" Fort Wayne will be the sight of a future wheel chair massacre as the congested traffic will pick off wheel chaired person after wheel chaired person. To help visualize what the Harrison Square would do for wheel chair people, imagine a person in a wheel chair on one side of the street, the light turns green for the cross walk, but within seconds, the cross walk light would turn instantly red and speeding cars would t-bone the wheel chair. A vicious plot by Hardball Capital to eliminate handicappable people! For the city councilmen on hand, this had to be so very obvious, the community needs this boost and the youth and business-minded residents depend on your YES vote come April.
1 comment:
Great commentary. I enjoyed reading it. I was at the meeting as well, its too bad we weren't able to meet in person.
I agree that the meeting was divided between the future leaders of Fort Wayne, and those who have had their chances to transform downtown for many, many years. The fact that many of these opponents of the project simply walked out on the meeting speaks volumes.
I think this meeting turned out vastly different than councilmen Schmidt and Smith expected. Let's see if they keep their word and listen to the views of their constituents.
Check out downtownfortwaynebaseball.blogspot.com for FULL coverage. Audio, video, digital copies of the handouts and more.
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