I just got this email from Tim regarding a flash mob protesting the destruction by ODOT district 12 of the gateway to our park neighborhood. Please, be there. We’re going to try FaceBooking this as well. It should be a salutary way to start a Friday evening.
Dear XXXXX--
I just got off the telephone with Tom Beres of WKYC Channel 3 News. He has time in his schedule tonight to do a spot at 6:30 PM (1830 if you want to think this is a military operation) about ODOT 's unwelcome incursion into the previously green and peaceful Brooklyn Centre.
We need as many people out there as the berm and the access roads can handle--there's more room now since there are fewer trees. We will be assembling between Fulton Road and Pearl (West 25th Street); I will try to get police support to control traffic and keep things moving. (We will be past the rush hour.)
All of us in Brooklyn Centre are affected by what ODOT has done by destroying the trees against our wishes. Everybody visiting the zoo or MetroHealth is affected. People entering the city from the western approach are affected. It is not too late to make ODOT put the trees back and make a natural, green solution for our noise problem.
Please, show up, especially if you live in Brooklyn Centre or in Tremont and will have to pass by the enormous monstrosity of ODOT's 20-foot high walls daily for the next few years, closing our neighborhood off, limiting admittance of light and air--the negative impacts are many and varied.
If you despise government overspending and pork, show up. These things are 165% of the cost of a superior green solution, at least.
If you despise bad design, show up. Canada and Germany and now Vermont have viable green solutions that look and function better than this ODOT concrete crap.
If you are offended at having government workers operate with arrogance and impunity, and immunity from adverse consequences, show up. These ODOT punks answer to no one; Lee Fisher and Ted Strickland can't control them; having ODOT determine our neighborhood's future is tantamount to being walked by your dog.
If you think first impressions count, show up. Brookside Park, the ZOO, Brooklyn Centre, Riverside Cemetery, and MetroHealth are all part of the same visual approach, welcoming people to the neighborhood and to the city. These hot concrete walls, devoid of trees, change the entire visual statement. Instead of saying welcome to our park neighborhood, welcome to the Forest City, they shout out, Welcome to Cleveland, Now go home.
Again, we're getting together to get our pictures taken, all of us, at 6:30 PM tonight on the access road to the south of I-71, behind Riverside Avenue, entering from Fulton and proceeding towards Pearl.
This is what the young people call a Flash Mob. We will assemble, have the TV people do what they can, get our pictures taken, and demobilize.
The more the merrier. See you there. Car pool, ride bikes, walk, ride motorcycles, do what you can to conserve space, but show up a little prior to 6:30 PM.
--Tim Ferris & Gloria Ferris
(writing to assemble a media event for Tom Beres, which, as he pointed out, rhymes, sort of--Ferris/Beres)
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