Questions for SPAR's next general meeting.

[sheclown]

SPAR has been heavily promoting the fact that elections will be held soon in their weekly emails.  There is a SPAR general meeting on Thursday which will provide an opportunity to ask some very specific questions about how the upcoming elections will be handled.   And members of SPAR could ask to be placed on the nominating committee....

Perhaps we could list concerns and questions to be addressed about the upcoming elections here, compile them, and send them via email to SPAR's office with the hopes they would be addressed at Thursday night's general meeting.

Questions, anyone?

[sheclown]

Almost two years ago, the neighborhood put together a list of questions for an upcoming Question and Answer meeting @ SPAR.

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,3924.0.html

[Springfielder]

I haven't gone into the link to see what's listed and/or answered...but from what I recall about that meeting, there were a great deal of questions, including many that had been posted on the spar forum (which they've taken down and never brought back to life) Even though some questions were answered, many were not. I never liked the idea of having to pre-submit questions, to me that just says that there will be answers but no opportunity for rebuttal or redirect. In other words, institutional and/or sanitized type of answers.

There are members of the spar board that read this forum, read the myspringfield one too, so they know what the hot topics/issues are. They know that there's a spreading consensus that the current board (all members) step down and have a complete overhaul of the board. That any of the current can opt for election to the board, but as it stands...they're in muddied waters and the community as a whole does not support them.

[FinnegansWake]

That any of the current can opt for election to the board, but as it stands...they're in muddied waters and the community as a whole does not support them.

Is it that the "community as a whole" does not support them? Or is it that there are 33 people on this thread that don't support them, 10 people on the Board who support them, 20 people who support them here and there, and 1854 people who either don't know about any of this, or don't give a crap?

And I don't mean that as a diss on you, more of a point that MJ and Spar Council hasn't done enough to capture everyone in SPR.

[edited to change "jack" to "enough" :-) ]

[Springfielder]

I would say that the amount of members they currently have, speaks volumes

[uptowngirl]

That any of the current can opt for election to the board, but as it stands...they're in muddied waters and the community as a whole does not support them.

Is it that the "community as a whole" does not support them? Or is it that there are 33 people on this thread that don't support them, 10 people on the Board who support them, 20 people who support them here and there, and 1854 people who either don't know about any of this, or don't give a crap?

And I don't mean that as a diss on you, more of a point that MJ and Spar Council hasn't done enough to capture everyone in SPR.

[edited to change "jack" to "enough" :-) ]

I think you hit it- a ot if not the majority of residents do not know who they are, or confuse them with the code enforcement- seriously I have spoken to a ot of people while doing the photo survey and this is what I am hearing.

[sheclown]

Many people do feel that SPAR has the power to approve or disapprove of projects.  They earnestly believe they need SPAR's permission and that SPAR gives out the COAs.

[danno]

The last time I was a memeber was at least 8 years ago.  I was on the board some time before that.

[ChriswUfGator]

Many people do feel that SPAR has the power to approve or disapprove of projects.  They earnestly believe they need SPAR's permission and that SPAR gives out the COAs.

Well, of course they think that. Since de-facto, that's what's been happening for 8 years...

It also doesn't surprise me that people think SPAR and COJ Code Enforcement are linked, since that is also true of the past decade. I'm surprised Louise didn't have a red telephone on her desk that went straight to Code Compliance, like the batphone, what with all of their mass complaint call-ins.

People don't always know how or why, but they figure out what's up, and these misconceptions are highly illustrative.

[Jumpinjack]

My observation: Any historic group that stands up for its neighborhood gets a reputation beyond it's actual authority.

Only alternative is to set people straight over and over again - Yeah, don't waste your time telling us because we don't matter. Head straight on down to City Hall with your problems because we aren't doing doodly-squat in this neighborhood.

[ChriswUfGator]

My observation: Any historic group that stands up for its neighborhood gets a reputation beyond it's actual authority.

And apparently so does a historic group that doesn't stand up for its neighborhood.