Notes from SPAR public meeting - 10.29

[cindi]

it is not literally torn down, it is still standing.  it just takes a huge beating every time a drop of rain enters the area.  it is sad.  they had it listed for sale a couple years back and had a virtual tour on line that showed the inside - awesome pictures.  it is ashame that someone couldn't help shore up the foundation before it gets to the point of no return.

[Dan B]

dan, that is the one.  i had obviously been giving erroneous info.  i was told that the last time the city did "diversional" work on hogan's creek it somehow did substantial damage to the basement (the destruction of which i mentioned). we all know that everytime a rain cloud passes over that place it is flooded. 

Oh, I dont know that your information is wrong. I was just making sure that was the one you were talking about.

A friend of mine looked at buying it a couple of years ago, and was the one who told me about the settling. I thought it was because of the soft marshy area it was built in.

[sandyshoes]

Cindi, you didn't by chance happen to save that link to the Drew Castle pix, did you?  Would love to see the building and the inside.  (Honest, I was born in the wrong century).

[cindi]

I must have it somewhere, it was beautiful.

[Dan B]

Some tidbits from the SPAR forum.

The Drew castle was built I believe by Dr. Drew, the son on Columbus Drew, one of the "founders" of Jacksonville - I have not looked into this one. I know of Columbus because I believe he is buried in the Old Cemetery. I do believe the Drew Ho]use is of stone

I know the one at 4th was the 60s Nasworthy told me, he watched them do it. I thought the bowl of the fountain went in there, but the lake was filled prior to the fountain being pushed over.
The bridge on Pearl took a large slice of the park and also the side yard of the Drew Castle, it is said that the road going too close to the house casued the subsidence.

And this from a wiki

[Dan B]

Another Angle

[ChriswUfGator]

it is not literally torn down, it is still standing.  it just takes a huge beating every time a drop of rain enters the area.  it is sad.  they had it listed for sale a couple years back and had a virtual tour on line that showed the inside - awesome pictures.  it is ashame that someone couldn't help shore up the foundation before it gets to the point of no return.

Whew, OK, my heart skipped a beat. That'd be a huge loss.

I always promised myself if I ever have that kind of money I'd buy and redo that place. I had stopped to look at it out of plain old curiosity back around 2001 or so, and the owner, an older white guy, said hi and told me I could have it for $450k. Which was waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much. The place is stunning. You don't realize it from outside but the sub-level amounts to what probably would be a 20-car garage

[chris farley]

I have been told several times when they redid the bridge on Pearl they went too close to the Drew Castle and payment was made to the family there to resolve the damage, they took the money and did nothing to prevent the subsidence.
I do not want the Klutho walls removed and Imeson was the genious behind preventing the flooding which at that time interfered with the street cars.  I repeat (I know) but the reason the creek has a wooden bottom and two feet of sand was to allow the water from the marsh below up through the bottom of the creek and to prevent the muck coming through as well.  I felt guilty at the meeting since I seemed the only one not "happy" with the plans.  I feel if the walls are removed, then as the chaos theory man said in Jurrasic (Jurassic?) Park "nature will out".  The Imeson plan reduced the water table in the park and area by 3 feet.
I believe it would take the agreement of the HPC to remove the walls, but they can go LUZ and council.
How do you post pictures on here.  I've got a drawing of the dredge that bulk headed and dredged the creek in 1906,  they just did not keep the river out.
I pulled several articles of the work done on the parks in 1906.  The lake at 4th and Pearl was excavated, an island put in the middle (there is a postcard of it on the back of the current SPAR newsletter), they gave it a clay bottom.  Imeson/Klutho kept the lake in the same place but removed the island and moved the lake over a littlee.

[fsu813]

Stider said: "So I take that to mean she did not address any of the tough issues...like explaining her e-mail, the lack of elections, and the various lies and innuendo she and others have been spreading about the rooming house issues."

Correct. These issues prolly take a lot of backstory & what not.

[fsu813]

Stephen Dare said:

"I have criticised SPAR, but have never seriously challenged their right to be in the neighborhood.  I havent ever tried to demolish their building, I havent harrassed them by making multiple complaints to the regulatory committees that govern not for profits, etc.  In short I have criticized them on their merits but taken no aggressive action against them.

This is a critical difference between simply criticizing and the type of behavior that is going on out there.

Its apples and oranges man.

What caused this dustup was an email authored not by the critics of SPAR, but by the executive director of the organization."

- ok, so you've never "seriously" challenged thier right to be here? (ha) All i good fun i suppose, huh.

- if making unsubtantiated claims, creating propaganda, calling SPAR board members place of employment, exaggerating the meaning of out-of-context emails, calling for the heads of SPAR members, twisting facts to fit your agenda, and stereotyping random SPAR membership.....all in public........isn't "harrassing", i'm not sure what is.

- critisizing on merits? (1) you have only recognized the "negative" things SPAR does, while ignoring the positive. Merits is a 2 way street, if you are trying to be legitmate. (2) what merits do you have to inaccurately call me an (paraphrasing) "snotty, well-off, SRG owning, elistist, white, SPAR member who clearly has no idea what the neighborhood is really like or what's best for it" ? (ha) i'd be curious.

- you have taken no "aggresive action" towards SPAR? no, just tried to initate thier downfall. that's all. what aggressive action has SPAR taken towards you? None. Yet you blame them for demoing your bulidng, something which they cannot do.

- what caused this "dust up" was someone fishing for anything that had the appearnace of contraversy, blowing it out of proportion & context, and trying to take the opprotunity to bash on any number of topics in general.

You be high on ....life..... to believe 2/3rds of the rhetoric you produce on this topic. in fact, i don't believe you do, as you have made yourself a hypocrite many times over in the past few weeks.

Please come to the Town Hall meeting to tell the large group of uppity, white, elitist, wealthy, been-here-5-minutes, LOLAS that thier opinions are wrong and they are really hurting the neighborhood. There should only be a few, right? Since SPAR is severly dwindling, right?

Perhaps your dream will come true and they'll just disolve the organization right then & there.

[fsu813]

"As an outcome of Louises actions as revealed in the email, she should resign and that SPAR spends too much time launching crusades against people and issues rather than for the neighborhood."

- since you know, what percentage of her time does she spend on this? oh, let me guess.....you don't really know.....you just made another assuption. hopefully it's more accurate than your assumptions of me. those didn't end well for you.

"Along the way, you and a couple of other of the spar members have made yourselves into spectacles with a fairly hysterical set of screeds about how unfair it is to notice what Louise wrote rather than what you wish she hadnt."

- and so the misrepresenting begins. at least it's the second bullet point and not the first this time.
i never said anything of the sort Stephen. go back and look at all my comments. never. what I said was unfair is that you take an out-of-context email with no backstory and make broad assumptions off of it, without even going to the the source. (ha). That's irresponsible journalism, someone from "the media" should know that. I think people need a Stephen Dare filter.....so that people can see what one write, then see how Stepehn interprets it.


"SPAR needs a change in leadership.  This is the consensus privately of majority of the SPAR people.  They don't know who should replace Louise, that is really the only holdup.   If Louise cared a bit more for the organization, she would have done the decent thing, resigned and offered to train someone."

- perhaps, perhaps not. i couldn't say either way. i don't know anyone else who can devote the time, energy, has intricate knowledge and reputation as she does. and, quite frankly, i don't beleive you when you cite "the secret majority" of anyone. you've purposely mistated far too much to have any cred on this issue.

"Apparently you finally will have a forum for Springfield that is no longer message controlled by SPAR and therefore not subject to these embarrassing 'cancellations' when the conversation is embarrassing to the SPAR leadership."

- we've had one: MJ. othwise you wouldn't be involved in all this. again you mistate for your agenda. the SPAR website is down for rehab. There were several reoccuring issues that i personally noticed that needed to be taken care of, don't know what else they are doing. Perhaps you could just ask what all will be improving instead of making stuff up to fit your agenda?

"For the first time in years, the SPAR board felt it necessary to actually have a public comments section and listen to its membership.  Of course they had banned a few people from coming to the meeting, in effect censoring their viewpoint, but still...a good step."

- again, not true. i've been to another meeting in the past year that random questions have been asked at the end. i'm not familar with the "banning", but i know you weren't banned.

"Don Downing and his unruly youngster in the office are apparently finally administering the kind of program that neighborhood groups should be administering:  the facade deal.  Its about freaking time."

- a backhanded compliment is better than non coming from you, i guess. what makes him the youngster "unruly"? Is it because he posted how you blantantly lied to him? also, yes it's good see the facade project. but since it's "about freaking time", what other organization could have done this sooner? nooone.

"The long list of negative campaigns has been outed, letting people see that there is a whole lot of positive work that is going undone as a result."

- negative campaigns.....hmm....the only one i see is the boarding house issue. where are the other campaigns?

"If you review the threads, you and mcvay and to a lesser extent a couple of others have done everything in your power to keep everyone divided, and not allow them to find any common ground."

- you are becoming more absurd by the week, Stephen. by you typing it doesn't make it true, sorry to disappoint. i don't sit idley while someone lies/exaggerates about this or that, trying to create contraversy. i dislike noone in the neighborhood personally, and i'm willing to wager noone i've met dislikes me personally. i know for a fact the same can't be said for you.

Pot: Hey, Kettle.
Kettle: Yeah?
Pot: You're black.

"And seriously friend, if you think I have any fears whatsoever of speaking a consistent story in public, you don't know anything about me."

- never said anything of the sort. creating an argument where none exists.

"1.  I don't believe that it would have helped.
2.  It was important for people to have a space to come to consensus or draw their own conclusions without a polarizing of the room monopolizing the conversation.
3.  Louise deserved a chance to speak to her membership herself and present her side of the story (something she still has not bothered to do with myself---despite the open channel that I keep for her) as well as do something that would have been audaciously decent, which would have been resign."

- 1. you are correct, various positive things in the neighborhood were presented. 2. i think you could care less about this, just an excuse. 3. i'm sure she would discuss "her side" with anyone that asked her. i'm sure she has done so in private. but i seriously doubt that she would with the same person that is still exaggreating claims in an effort to out her.

"My suggestions are simple:  A neighborhood summit and the two years overdue elections should be held."

- The absurdity continues. A neighborhood forum is already planned, as I stated on MJ Friday morning......in which you promptly critisized it. You ranted on about how people don't have a right o decide about blah blah blah. Why the change in tune? I'm sure that you can raise your questions with whomever there.

Again, if you show up.

I attend almost every SPAR, Shadco, SAMBA meetings....where good public disussion & opinions are heard, and i've seen you at one, over the past year. Affter arguing over the BP, you didn't shop up to the next Shadco, you seemed surpirsed about the Main Street facade details even though it was been discussed in various meetings, and you have so much to say online about SPAR, but you don't show up to the meeting. Good grief.

Just a guy behind a computer who likes to bash away, suggest how things should be done, but then takes no action on it. Doesn't even participate in the most popular neighborhood events or community organizations.

But....you can write a good story, no?

I don't disgaree entirely with much of what you write, Stephen, but you when present it in such a way that is borderline fiction, i can't support it.



























 

[thelakelander]

How about not backing up the lies.  If the topic is not directly dealing with the first post of this thread, don't post it here.  Either discuss in person or take the neighborhood diatribes somewhere else.

[thelakelander]

Here is the original post and topic of the discussion for those who may have forgotten.

- Hope the new JSO guy can be as effective and well liked as Srgt. Short. He seemed ok, but everyone really liked Short. JSO stated that they haven't seen crime levels in the general area this low since the early 70's.

- The Northside Community Shuttle by JTA program is interesting. It's a good concept at least. Apparently has worked well in other parts of town. Doesn't go on the Eastside of Main though, for some reason. Minimum 2 hour call ahead time is ok, but the presenter made it sound like you better call much earlier than that (like the day before) to assure you have a ride.

- Hogans Creek Plan was VERY impressive. For a preliminary report and design....wow.....it looks very good. Hit a home run with it so far. I think the guy in charge said it would probably take 2-3 years to secure the funding, which is dissappointing but relaistic. It looks like a 100 million+ dollar project. So maybe 5 years from now you're looking at completion?

- unlike what some predicted, there was a public forum at the end of the meeting. noone was "stonewalled". the car wash/conveneince store proposal and the 'tear down unlivable houses / preserve them' argument was brought up. decidedly favored preserving, while demo'ing only certain cases may be ok. (the ghost house on 8th was brought up). calling code enforcement in mass was recommended to get the city's attention on this issue.

- perhaps the most interesting thing that was brought up......apparently there will be a community-wide public forum on the topic of boarding houses in the next few weeks, defintely in November. I sure hope Strider, Sheclow, Stephen, and anyone else who has a strong opinion on this one way or another will show up.

- great shot of JFK on Main Street in the newsletter. i never get mine in the mail. seems as if Louise's column was directly pointed at some of the discussion on this board, as she went through various issues in "fact vs misperception". she dispells a lot of misinformation that was brought up.

all in all good meeting, another 15 minutes of public forum would have been nice, but it was heading towards 9pm.

[strider]

As it has been discussed, here is the text of Louise DeSpain's letter in the recent SPAR Council newsletter. I am assuming that as this was intended for all of the Springfield area and the residents as well as interested parties, it is OK to post.  Moderators, if I am wrong, please remove it.

[fsu813]

i'm curious as to why there is no response from the same people who were so harsh about describing how SPAR doesn't communicate well, that the website was taken down to prevent debate, that SPAR has a demo list, that they are nothing but LOLAS, they don't enough things to unite the neighborhood, and they are just up to no good.

again, seems like she wanted to make a point of correcting or clarifying these issues so that the same propaganda couldn't be repeated over & over again.

did it work?