Sunday, September 14, 2008

Giddens Park in the Big Picture


Long long time ago...kind of reminds me of a certain Don McClean song. The City of Tampa launched the Greenprinting Initiative. A partnership of the city, the Mayor's Beautification Program and the F.E. Lykes Foundation to target 10 city parks for upgrades at the rate of 1 per year. The project was to be seeded with funds from the foundation which offered $75,000 for each park.


The first up was supposed to be Southeast Seminole Heights' Giddens Park. As the program draws to the end. The first hasn't been finished. The second in Tampa Heights was to center on Lake Robles and Robles Park but it is still in the design stage. Third is Curtis Hixon Park, a downtown Riverfront park. Now the city of Tampa has likely spent over the last 20 years more money on that piece of land than all the other urban core parks combined. And the plans of Mayor Iorio will make it so if it isn't already.


"It's functional," Debra Evenson, the beautification program's executive director, said of the fountain. "But it can't be turned on until final inspection. ...it's not 10 parks in 10 years, but we've done a lot more than we expected to do. Curtis Hixon is the final end of the foundation's commitment." as reported and quoted by Kathy Steele of the Tampa Tribune.

My question: If it was 10 parks in 10 years and the final product is at best 3 parks-maybe, how have you done a lot more than you expected to do? What sort of Orwellian talk is that?

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