GSA, Federal Courthouse, Reed and King
I just read in the Patriot that once again, the GSA is raising crime as a concern at the Jackson Lick potential site for their new, secure Taj Mahal. Here's how the Patriot's reporter (and budding paperback crime novelist) John Luciew put it:
"Yet GSA officials have expressed misgivings about Jackson-Lick, saying it is the most expensive option because the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development would demand replacement costs for the lost units. The GSA also has concerns about crime there. "
Two points - if crime is so terrible in and around Jackson Lick, how do all the elderly residents manage?
And how much crime would really remain around what is bound to be the most secure federal courthouse ever built? Surely a few federal marshals can protect the federal workers and visitors who will work there. This isn't the Green Zone in Baghdad. It seems to me what's showing is that to the federal government, an African-American mixed class neighborhood is crime infested. GSA, unless you have figures to prove it, your prejudice is showing. Show us the crime figures for the area, if they exist. After all, the rest of us who happen to live where you want to put your fortress want to know. Am I supposed to arm myself to go the the Broad Street Market? Do I need a Doberman to walk to the river?
Come on - take the challenge. Show us the numbers.
And where is Mayor Reed on this? Luciew quotes pointman Randy King as follows:
"Regardless of whether they choose Jackson-Lick or Cumberland Court, we expect the new courthouse to have a very substantial economic spinoff impact on the surrounding blocks and neighborhoods," said Randy King, Reed's spokesman.
"Neighboring property values are most assuredly going to be profoundly impacted for the better," he said.
The opposite is true of the Third and Forster site, according to Reed's office. King calls the proposal "simply unacceptable."
Thanks for taking sides - clearly to the Reed crowd, the disabled and the working poor have less value than the upper-middle class folks on Green. Shame, Shame, your lack of social conscience is showing, too.
posted by Anniken Davenport, Esquire @ 8:48 AM
3 Comments:
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Thanks, anon. Interesting reading, to be sure. can't wait for my school taxes (already sky high for crappy schools) go up another $800 per year. Oh, and there's no inflation, so no need to raise wages.
I agree it should be none of the three, but I also firmly believe that those of us with the means to move without great financial hardship should go before 85 year old ladies and young struggling single mothers. I'm sorry if I point out what seems to me to be obvious and I certainly feel your pain at the prospect of moving.
The alternative site I would urge the Mayor to push is actually on the other side of Forster - all the Ronald Brown Charter buildings (since the school is losing its charter anyway) That location is about as big as your neighborhood, and has only a very small handful of private homes.
As for full disclosure - I live in an affected area too - across from Cumberland Court. I would gladly have relocated if they had picked our parcel, if the alternative was Cumberland Court or Jackson Lick. I have the means to, they don't. I asked GSA at one of the meetings if our site had been considered - it was a bit too small, she said.
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