Boundary Fractious-Disorientation (BFD) – Historic Districts

It seems that the Truman Neighborhood has a case of BFD, Boundary Fractious-Disorientation. This disorder occurs when the historic district boundaries have been drawn and redrawn several times to minimize hostilities from local churches so that a community is really not sure what is considered historic, while the final historic district boundaries ends up only a fraction of what it was. The local Heritage District boundaries have been in 3 different configurations since 1974. The last reconfiguration in 1984 significantly reduced its size leaving it 1/3 of what it used to be. During a time while communities across the country were expanding their historic districts and creating new districts, our City Council, with co-sponsorship of the First Baptist Church (and no objection from the RLDS Church), choose to reduce our program, thus, attempting to rewrite history to make our community appear less important than it really is. They were successful. Current boundaries leave out approximately 1/5 of the Truman National Historic Landmark District. Yes, I failed to mention that there is another district, the nationally designated Truman National Historic Landmark District, whose boundaries have never changed, although there is a current proposal to expand those boundaries to cover additional residential areas and the Square. That proposal has been around for 9 years. Yes, it appears those representing the national interests here in town believe our community is more important than we do. The Midtown / Truman Road Corridor Neighborhood Revitalization project was in a position to clear things up, but their boundaries unfortunately fractured the National Historic Landmark District again leaving out approximately 1/2 of the district. They eventually expanded those boundaries but not after most of the public money was spent. There are even a few properties on Delaware Street where the front 1/2 of the lots are in both the local and the national districts while the back 1/2 of the lots are only in the national district. You don’t even have to leave your own back yard to experience BFD. I sure hope students in the public schools are learning their lessons in geometry & fractions. It will come in handy when future generations recognize these problems and decide they want it fixed. Will the neighborhood be the same when this eventually happens?