Yes, it was Santa-Cali-Gon time again in Independence. And yes, attendance appeared to be up (along with the BMI of the average attendee). And of course, it’s the festival named after and intended to celebrate our pioneer trails heritage but does nothing to promote this important history. As successful as one may judge this 4-day festival to be, the fact is that it promotes undeveloped space and blighted asphalt parking lots for the remaining 361 days of the year. The blighted empty parking lot owned by Bank of America (8-29-09 blog entry) looked even worst this year than last. The pile of brush and weeds that was in the middle of the lot wasn’t even cleaned out. The good church-folks that got permission from the bank to sale parking places there just shoved the debris to the corner towards the street to optimize the number of parking spaces (while minimizing their clean-up efforts). The bank didn’t even bother to mow the grass. If the Independence Chamber of Commerce would just pull the blinds on their windows and, of course, open their eyes, they would see this. The rusty strands of barbed wire that protect(?) this lot actually extend within a few feet of playground equipment for Hillcrest Ministries youth. Yes, Hillcrest is located on the NE corner of Spring & White Oak Streets which happens to be within the proposed expanded Truman National Historic Landmark District boundaries. Ironically, Hillcrest Ministries has no off-street parking for their patrons. No, this is not just about historic preservation. It’s about being a good neighborhood, public safety, economic development, and raising the bar with respect to community stewardship. We need community values we can “bank” on.
No comments:
Post a Comment