We were all excited to hear Larry and Autumn wanted to work on improving our parks within the City. There were community gardens started and there was hope we might see some inviting spaces. Well, now we have 3 candidates preaching the same exact point, except now they think we need more trash cans, social hubs, benches and pet waste stations. This means the Larry & Autum initiative was unsuccessful in these areas, right? Why else would they push for the same exact thing in their campaign if these initiatives were successful?
It's because Larry & Autumn got too busy to care about our parks or our people. They became too involved in the politics to focus the time where they said they would. Now, we're being given even more empty promises.
So now, let us explore the Grow Meadville program, or what it really is overGROWn Meadville!
This seems great? At least, it did. Until they got too many things going and they started to abandon some of the gardens. Don't believe us? We didn't think you would, but we'll go ahead and show you how 2 of these gardens look today, September 17, 2021.
5th Ward
South Main Street
We're not the only ones frustrated by the lack of involvement.
They want to "listen to us" and invest in our parks and community spaces, but don't want to help maintain them. How many more overgrown spaces are we going to get if we elect the next 3 candidates promising the same thing?
As if the photos aren't enough for you to believe us that they're starting to abandon these gardens, we went ahead and looked up the "tour" of these gardens. Know which 2 are not listed on the site, even though they have the signage posted at the gardens indicating that they are, or rather, they WERE part of this initiative?
Oh, right... you think we've just pulled some random maps because we want to support our narrative. It's a shame you haven't started to believe us yet, you should know we have the facts to back the words. We don't lie or speak empty thoughts, they're backed by proof and evidence. Following this link shows you the full list of their gardens, see any missing?
1 Women’s Services Community Garden 2 Seton Catholic School Garden 3 Meadville Medical Center City Garden 4 MARC Community Garden 5 MAMS-MARC Edible Trail 6 MAMS Edible Garden 7 City Hall Garden 8 Christ Church Garden 9 Crawford County READ Program Garden 10 Carr Hall Garden
That's right, they've removed them from the website, but have yet to do something with these spaces in real life. Apparently when you just delete things from your website, it means that it's not your problem anymore.
We now have the other candidates making even more promises, and they might (keyword might) deliver on the initial investment by getting a grant. The issue they all seem to have is the follow up.
You know, if these candidates want to see these improvements so much, why aren't they already out in these gardens showing us they mean business? Instead of marching up and down our streets spewing empty promises, why don't they go and put the time into our public spaces? If you see them doing this here soon, you're welcome! They wouldn't have gotten this idea if it weren't for us, but they'll never tell you that. The real issue is, they apparently don't know additional trash cans, benches and pet waste stations require additional maintenance. Benches are seemingly minimal, but trash cans and especially pet waste stations, are a much greater task to maintain. Are we going to hire additional staff for this? Add even more of a deficit to the already struggling City budget? Are they going to maintain these themselves? Well, that's highly doubtful!
So, if they're not volunteering to maintain these and we don't currently have the resources available to maintain these, how will these be paid for? The City would need to increase their revenue. Do you know how Cities increase revenue? If you guessed raising taxes, you're right. Oh, you rent? Well, unfortunately if taxes raise, the cost of rent would likely increase to help your landlord cover these costs. So, now their whole affordable housing initiative is out the window because they've raised taxes.
But, by stating that we need more trash cans, are they stating that our City is dirty? Are they saying we're incompetent citizens who can't throw our trash away in a responsible manner in a receptacle already available to us? Guess so.
Also, don't we have other critters who poop outside? Are dog owners irresponsible like they're suggesting, or are we seeing other animal waste? Did they even look into the cat population in Meadville? How many cats are outside dwellers? These cat owners must be so irresponsible not picking up after their cat, right? Wait, that would be assuming that all of these cats are domesticated and there are no feral cats in Meadville, which we know is incorrect. Heck, maybe they should focus on a low cost cat clinic or a TNR program for our City?
In the writing of this blog, we've been able to spur a few different ideas. All of these are NEW ideas. So why can't these 3 candidates figure out how to come up with their own ideas and not try to duplicate an already failed campaign?
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