City of Jacksonville Considers Love to be Blight?!?!?!

[Kay]

Mike, My initial reaction was the same as yours but I can appreciate that too many locks seem to have caused structural
problems in other cities. 

[fieldafm]

Mike, My initial reaction was the same as yours but I can appreciate that too many locks seem to have caused structural
problems in other cities.

In this instance, that was not why they were cut down. They were considered 'blight' and removed accordingly. My issue with that line of thinking is that I use the Riverwalk multiple times a week and often find myself having to pick up the litter and overflowing trash cans that I routinely see COJ maintenance workers drive right past on their John Deere Gators (the very same workers tasked with keeping the Riverwalk clean). A woman on Facebook messaged me that she was really saddened that her lock that commemorated her deceased father was cut down. Every time she walked by it on the Riverwalk, it made her smile because her dad was taking in the view of the river. Is that really blight? Doesn't that evoke a personal attachment to a place? Doesn't downtown need more of that?

This is a much larger issue than 3 dozen padlocks. There are plenty of publicly owned spaces, parks and buildings which are not maintained properly by COJ... but yet, time and effort is being spent on cutting down some heart-shaped and decorated padlocks commemorating love for one another? Last night, my dad and I had dinner at Uptown Market and drove past the buildig being consumed with overgrown weeds at 9th and Main. The City owns that building. Multiple parties have tried to buy it. Yet it sits there blighted as can be.

We all need to love each other more, and also to love our city enough to care about maintaining it in a proper fashion. This lock issue is really the perfect metaphor to illustrate that disconnect.

Someone made a personal judgement call that didn't work out so well. Ok, I don't want to personally piss in their Cheerios about it, but that's particularly hard to stomach on a much broader scale when trashcans are overflowing.

[Ajax]

Mike, My initial reaction was the same as yours but I can appreciate that too many locks seem to have caused structural
problems in other cities.

The day that we have enough people coming downtown and putting up enough locks to cause a structural problem...yeah, that will be a good day for downtown. 

[Steve]

Mike, My initial reaction was the same as yours but I can appreciate that too many locks seem to have caused structural
problems in other cities.

The day that we have enough people coming downtown and putting up enough locks to cause a structural problem...yeah, that will be a good day for downtown. 

Preach. I'd love nothing more than to have Paris' issue. Over there, it really did cause structural problems.

[fieldafm]

City changing positions. Read the full story via Daily Record:

http://jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=545184

[IrvAdams]

Good move by the City. This kind of thing should be encouraged, not eliminated.

[fieldafm]

Looks like love may be prevailing in our fair city:

http://jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=545191

[Josh]

Paris has begun removing their love locks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/world/europe/paris-bridges-locks-of-love-taken-down.html?_r=0