Live Blogging: Hemming Plaza Committee - Banning Game Playing and furniture

[TheCat]

We're here.

[fieldafm]

Denise Lee is absent today.

Redman and our very own Ock were being interviewed earlier by Action News.  ALL major media outlets are packing Conf Room A in City Council's office

[fieldafm]

Redman says 'we need drastic action'

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Jeniffer Hewitt Apperson of DVI:

Making the park clean,safe and attractive.  Program the heck out of it for a variety of users.

[thelakelander]

We're here.

Bill Gulliford opened with a speech thats basically a pish posh on all this attention to the subject.  "Slow News Day" is how he characterized it.

Gulliford reads Metro Jacksonville?  Cool.

[fieldafm]

Redman:  We have other cities that are giving people bus tickets to homeless.  We don't need the reputation of being the homeless capital of the world.

This is a very tense environment in this room today.

[TheCat]

Officer Michelle Cook (zone commander), she says "downtown is safe but the perception is that crime is bad...in police work perception is reality."

So...we're legislating based on a false perception.

Redman, spoke a few minutes earlier, he said, essentially, we need to get rid of the people. It's time for drastic measures to send a message.

-send a message to who?

Mark Crammer - has taken the "stage" uninvited. He is on two committees:1) to recall the mayor 2) international boycot on the city of jacksonville.

--this guy is pissed/frustrated. He is saying to Redman "you make your drastic decisions and you will be met with others making their drastic decisions to confront you. Sounds like a call to arms but its more of a call to say "f*&$ You!"

[fieldafm]

SHADCO rep saying that we need to better integrate the surrounding uses.  Sorry did not catch her name. 

She wants it to be a 'controlled area' not a park. 

[TheCat]

I'm not sure her name...but she is giving a visionary speech for hemming park...but I'm not hearing the vision...just a lot of compelling cadence and almost anecdotes...where is this going? Gulliford, nods his head, looks away, he does not know what she is talking about.

[fieldafm]

She also wants to strip away the racial undertones in the conversation and have a civil discourse on the matter.

'Urban renewal not urban removal.'

Stop kicking the can down the road and build a city for everybody.

[fieldafm]

This has become a circus. 

[Ocklawaha]

Redman:  We have other cities that are giving people bus tickets to homeless.  We don't need the reputation of being the homeless capital of the world.

This is a very tense environment in this room today.

EXPLOSIVE. The 'homeless guy' that I invited is speaking. He's a member of the longshoreman union, has a job, has a house, and plays cards in the park. So much for the 'homeless, plague.

[fieldafm]

A gentleman is up saying now 'The problem is not at the park, the crime is happening in different areas around downtown.'

'How do you differentiate who is undesirable'

[Ocklawaha]

Undesirables?  An element that flaunts how bad they are, and challenges everyone.

UH?

I just spent an hour walking from table to table (with a mac book in my hand) and only one guy asked me anything; 'Sir, do you have the time?'

[fieldafm]

There will be a request for information to see if anyone will manage the park according to Gulliford.  No mention of an RFP or budget.