Kyle Cassidy wrote:
I understand your position and I think very often UCD does stay out of
the fray. But in the particular case of Dock Street I believe it goes
back to your point of "whom is UCD beholden to" -- and as Sharrieff
pointed out, UCD is beholden to the people who pay it's bills -- at the
moment, that is not "all the people of west philly". They're still a
private entity until/unless the NID passes, in which case they'd be
answerable to our citycouncil person. In the meantime, the people who
are funding UCD have made it clear that getting businesses on Baltimore
avenue is a priorty and they have created a special pool of money to do
just that -- get businesses to open up along Baltimore Avenue. So with a
clear mandate from the people who are funding them, and popular support
among the people in the neighborhood (I recall someone from the zoning
board saying the amount of community support for that particular
business getting their variance was unprecidented in sheer size), they
went ahead and sided with Dock Street over the Hickman Temple day care
(which is my understanding, would have not been a public day care, but
rather one for the church only). If two neighbors were arguing over what
color their semi-detatched should be painted, I expect that UCD would
not get involved or if there were a rich debate about the borders of the
Catchman zone, I'd likewise expect them not to pick a side, but in this
instance, I think they acted properly in accordance with the wishes of
their funders. (Who include, to some small extent, me, since I've sent
them money and I'm happy with their position on Dock Street).
thanks kyle. (and thanks for not resorting to ad hominem.)
consider this: if a majority of folks in the hood were
pro-Nutter, and these same folks also happened to be
contributing money to ucd, that would not make it right for
ucd to publicly endorse Nutter, to encourage voters to vote
for Nutter. the choice for Nutter or not is a public choice,
a public process among equal stakeholders.
that's why in my example I took care to say 'public
questions/disputes', why I said ucd should have been neutral
once the zoning question became a public dispute among
neighbors before the zoning board.
so, how would you revise this:
- - - - - - -
idea #5: ucd should remain scrupulously neutral in public
questions/disputes/contests, not taking sides or
even appearing to take sides.
- - - - - - -
..................
UNIVERSITY*CITOYEN
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[aka ray]
SERIAL LIAR. CALL FOR RATES.
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