In a message dated 7/10/2007 1:44:19 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
I'm still on the fence on this (as many of us might be) The fence has fallen down. The NID as advanced by UCD, Wendell's claim in his UCReview "interview" notwithstanding, is a dead issue. There's even a possibility that somewhere in the Ivory Tower from which most of the UCD money comes, the light has dawned that this organization has harmed what Penn wants desperately to think is a wonderful model for a relationship between an urban university and its neighbors. In which case, the new Modern Prometheus it created may come out of this as a radically different organization than it is still trying to be. The latest installment of Tony West's series in The Public Record is quite telling. A BID along Germantown Ave that a) truly reflects what the state law defines as "Business" in "Business Improvement District -- even given a small number of rather large apartment-only buildings interspersed among the stores but integral to the business corridor, b) a focus on what, apparently, the overwhelming majority of stakeholders are willing to fund as an auxiliary to city services -- viz., litter and trash removal along the strip, c) a limited and relatively homogeneous "district" served, d) a grassroots governance structure with neither featherbedders nor people trying to build an empire for their own personal welfare. It's doubtful that UCD, as presently structured, could suddenly start doing what it's been incapable of doing since the getgo. That is, go back to square one and propose either one or more BIDs for the commercial strips in the neighborhood (principally Lancaster and Baltimore Avenues and the 4000 block of Market Street, maybe 40th Street although nobody knows what this will be like a year from now. But, were such a thing done, and done with true community participation and involvement (implying a lot more than another meeting at the Christian School) -- UCD providing facilitation but not direction -- the idea might rise again in an acceptable way. Alternately, if UCD could provide the facilitation for the neighborhood in general to develop a "clean and safe" plan for a NID (as opposed to a BID), with every property owner contributing, something positive could arise. This would also require a totally restructured UCD or, otherwise, the pretentious, extravagant, and dubiously effective marketing and development efforts would be kept going with surtax money by the bookkeeping ruse of having the NID pay for clean and safe while the "voluntary" contributions were used for these other functions. Always at your service & ready for a dialog, Al (call me Mr Helpful) Krigman ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
