Funny Story... I was coming back from the School Board meeting early September and as so many times before, when passing Station Five asked my son Alex "Wanna stop?". He loves touring stations, even has one captian comment he knew his way round the truck better than most rookies. I've taken him to about 70 stations countless times.... but we never expected returning home from fighting heat on school buses we'd run into the fire of bad and stupid government and corporate greed, and at a fire station at that.
We learned that the land Station Five has sat on for almost a century, and that there was not one single concrete provision to insure the survival of the station, which is the oldest standing structure along the St. Johns from the Fuller-Warren to the Matthews. The firefighters didn't even know about the deal until it was done, and many aspects of it were sneaky and dirty. Peyton sought and got a bypass of a historic review and claimed no adverse financial loss to the city, but waived making an assesment of the properties to be exchanged. How can you know you're not losing anything if you don't know the value of it?
Long and short, a corporate rich boy gave a sweet deal to Fidelity, and Reggie Fullwood, who ran the duck and cover for the Peyton administration and Fidelity in this dirty deal, got loads of money from Fidelity for his campaign. It screams graft and payoff.
Seven days later my son and I were at the next City Council meeting, and I swear I wasn't halfway thru my presentation when Glorious Johnson spoke up, upset that what she thought she was promised by Pay(me-a)ton Peyton was not in place, that is protection of Station Five. She called me back and had Lisa Rowe from the Mayor's office called to her, and she was livid. Rowe was boarderline stuttering, knowing they had been caught like a kid with a hand in the cookie jar. The next day by 1 pm she sent me an email that she had just filed a bill, 2007-988, which calls for the protection of the Station as historic landmark and landmark site.
I went full steam at everyone involved. I have to be fair, Jon Yost asked me down to Fidelity to personally show me what Fidelity has done for the city with the Artist Walk and Riverwalk. I think he is a good man, credit where it is due.
Every fire fighter I spoke with shared concerns about speaking out about this, and they have been told to shut up about it, and are in fear for their jobs if they do. That itself is criminal to me, that those we call upon to protect us, those so willing to lay down their lives to protect us, fear speaking out and exercising thier most basic of American Rights. I got more information and more information and crafter a website about it, and the Folio ran a story on it. There are no plans for the future use of the property currently, and I want to see the "pocket park" (more of a brown bagger lunch park for Fidelity than anything else) expanded to encompass Station Five, and for Five to be married to our current Fire Museum, Station Three down at Kids Kampus. By the way, they damaged Three when it was moved, and it has had unaddressed termite damage making the upstairs unusable for years.
I think the station can be a museum/fire safety-safety teaching center and a great marquis for the city. I think, since it is the last piece of history a century old along the river from the Fuller-Warren to the Matthews, that it stay right where it is. Do we really need yet another giant, formless glass block along the river?
Please visit my site at http://SaveStationFive.blogspot.com and call your city council (630-1377), the mayor (630-1776) and Fidelity (854-5000) and tell them to keep Five right where it is because it belongs to us, the People, and to to the legacy of the firefitghters who every day enter harms way to protect us.
SKOT, Give um hell friend! Keep us posted on meetings and where pressure can be applied.
Ocklawaha
This is the same old same old - good ole boy network that will keep Jacksonville from ever really making the big time. Citizens also need to look closely at why Ron Barton and Peyton continue to "sell out" the citizens and our history yet again. This is not Ron Barton's home town - what would he care what he saves in his demolition of Brooklyn and Riverside ?
And by the way - does anyone know where Ron Barton's wife works ?????????
brooklyn booklyn brooklyn...."big time" to jacksonville was getting an NFL team. Today the mentality is getting a return on their investments. If the good old boys and JTA Jackasses keep investing their 401K plan and city pension dollars in Texaco and Cheveron they'll all be bagillionaires and can retire big happy pig porker boys. And that's their american dream. ;D