no good deed goes unpunished
There's a park on the north side of J'ville. It's in a not very nice part of town and had suffered from neglect. The building there was in disrepair and the park was essentially abandoned.
Tony Boselli, ex-Jaguar and all around good guy went to the community and asked to fix the place up. He got the approval of the city council rep, and several charitable organizations to work with him and they cleaned up the park, fixed benches and turned the dilapidated building into a small community center for after school programs. They turned it back into a park that can be enjoyed. Now 15 kids are enrolled in the after school program there. Boselli wants to make it bigger, hiring a second teacher and bringing in more kids. All he asks is to lease the building that he renovated for $1 a year.
Well, the new city council woman is balking. She says the community has no say in what programs happen there, and it's their park. Tony should be denied his lease and sent packing. A flier was "anonymously" distributed saying he wanted to control the park and get it named after himself. They didn't quite know what the name would be though, because they misspelled Tony's name in the flier. He has denied that claim.
Back to the point though, and my getting indignant about it all.....
These folks had nothing. Someone came in and made lemonade out of their lemons and now they want that guy out? Rumor has it this is a racial issue. The council woman, who is black, allegedly wants the rich white athlete out of her neighborhood, and back in Ponte Vedra where he belongs. She would allegedly be OK if he were black, but no rich black athlete stepped up to that plate. Now, saying that isn't fair either. Jaguar players of all races do an awful lot to help a lot of people in the community of Jacksonville. This project just happened to be something Boselli wanted to do. It's not quite fair to call it a racial issue, either. Although it's a widely held belief, I can't call it fact. The councilwoman won't confirm or deny it. In fact, she won't answer her phone or door when anyone from the media comes calling.
I know this though. No matter what else it is, it's a power grabbing selfish issue. There was an overgrown park with a run down building that nobody cared about. Boselli went in and made something of it and now everybody (or at least one new councilwoman and her cronies) wants it. These people were nowhere to be found when he was fixing park benches. They weren't there when he was picking up trash. They weren't offering to help when he renovated the building. Now that it's something worth having, these people are more than willing to take it away from him. That's just wrong.
Tony Boselli, ex-Jaguar and all around good guy went to the community and asked to fix the place up. He got the approval of the city council rep, and several charitable organizations to work with him and they cleaned up the park, fixed benches and turned the dilapidated building into a small community center for after school programs. They turned it back into a park that can be enjoyed. Now 15 kids are enrolled in the after school program there. Boselli wants to make it bigger, hiring a second teacher and bringing in more kids. All he asks is to lease the building that he renovated for $1 a year.
Well, the new city council woman is balking. She says the community has no say in what programs happen there, and it's their park. Tony should be denied his lease and sent packing. A flier was "anonymously" distributed saying he wanted to control the park and get it named after himself. They didn't quite know what the name would be though, because they misspelled Tony's name in the flier. He has denied that claim.
Back to the point though, and my getting indignant about it all.....
These folks had nothing. Someone came in and made lemonade out of their lemons and now they want that guy out? Rumor has it this is a racial issue. The council woman, who is black, allegedly wants the rich white athlete out of her neighborhood, and back in Ponte Vedra where he belongs. She would allegedly be OK if he were black, but no rich black athlete stepped up to that plate. Now, saying that isn't fair either. Jaguar players of all races do an awful lot to help a lot of people in the community of Jacksonville. This project just happened to be something Boselli wanted to do. It's not quite fair to call it a racial issue, either. Although it's a widely held belief, I can't call it fact. The councilwoman won't confirm or deny it. In fact, she won't answer her phone or door when anyone from the media comes calling.
I know this though. No matter what else it is, it's a power grabbing selfish issue. There was an overgrown park with a run down building that nobody cared about. Boselli went in and made something of it and now everybody (or at least one new councilwoman and her cronies) wants it. These people were nowhere to be found when he was fixing park benches. They weren't there when he was picking up trash. They weren't offering to help when he renovated the building. Now that it's something worth having, these people are more than willing to take it away from him. That's just wrong.
Labels: Bizarro World
John put this out here at 2:56 PM
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