Today's UCReview ran an informative item about the University City Community Stakeholders, spearheaded by Sharif Ali & Tony West. As everybody knows, I agree with their objections to the lack of transparency in the way UCD operates, especially with respect to the proposal to implement a NID in the neighborhood. A petition, started into circulation at the "First Thursday" meeting orchestrated by Penn's, seems like a good idea. And is, indeed, the poetic irony Sharif notes. I'm assuming that the petition will be distributed further and wider than just this meeting, to get a truly broad sample of area stakeholders. I wonder about one point mentioned in the article. "Stakeholders will draft a series of recommendations to present to UCD." Unfortunately, experience has shown that trying to engage UCD in a dialog of any kind is totally fruitless. The three community meetings that group held when it introduced the NID idea are certainly a case in point. One affected party after another rose to object to the proposal -- many making suggestions as to how the concept might be changed to be more acceptable -- but UCD turned a totally deaf ear. I fear that Jeremiah was right (13:23) -- the leopard cannot change his spots. Making recommendations to UCD won't help. And I fear that bringing the recommendations to UCD's overlords at Penn will be useless too, because the University is too enamored of the myths it spins about the wonderful things it's done to save the neighborhood -- with UCD being a key to that supposed remarkable success. The right place for the recommendations to be presented is City Hall. With our District Council member and the new Mayor. So a good opportunity will present itself at the West Philadelphia Mayoral Forum on Oct 22. I'd like to suggest to Sharif and Tony that they consider asking Bob Christian for a special slot on the program to make a brief presentation -- emphasizing the opposition to UCD's NID proposal in the community at large. Personally, of course, I'm convinced that the NID in anything like the form in which it's been presented is dead. But that doesn't mean some sort of SSD couldn't be effective and gain approval. And a well-conceived presentation in front of some of the folks who are and will be political powerhouses in the city after January could help to overcome the strength Penn/UCD wield by virtue of their big bucks.
Always at your service & ready for a dialog, Al Krigman ************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
