Apr 29 2009
A Strange Justification: “We’ve already pretty much destroyed downtown”
This post appears on my other site with a video included.
Oh, and this town
is my town–alright?
Love or hate it–it don’t matter
’cause I’m gonna stand and fight
This town–is my town
She’s got her ups and downs
But love or hate it–it don’t matter
’cause this is my town.
At a Tuesday evening Oneida common council meeting a local business owner told the council: Downtown is falling apart. If everyone goes home there wont be a downtown. Letting people work from home is not getting a business space donwtown rented.” She was at the meeting to voice her concern over a re-zoning plan that would allow city residents to use their homes in residential areas as places of business. The woman owns and works at a hair and beauty salon on Main Street. In order to help cover the cost of running the building which houses her livelihood she rents out space to other hair stylist who cannot afford to open their own business’s downtown, and she is concerned that the proposed zoning changes will make it harder for her to rent those spaces. Losing any of the five people who rent space from her will place her own business and her ability to maintain the building in jeopardy. All of this seemed to be lost on one councilperson who said: We’ve already pretty much destroyed downtown.”
So I guess if the zoning changes become a reality we should consider it a coup de grace for for downtown; the illogical finish by the present city elders who have chosen to continue the decades old tradition of political mismanagement.
Oneida used to be a beautiful, thriving, pleasant place to live, with attractive buildings in late nineteenth and early twentieth century style, as this series of old photos I once posted helps to show. Now, however, the entire north side has exactly three retailers; a convenience store, a drug store, and a dollar store, though there is also a fish shop and diner as well. A number of the old (an often historic) buildings are now gone, having fallen victim to fires. They’ve been replaced- not with new buildings-but with parking lots. Almost all business is now located at the extreme end of the south side, near the city boundaries, and sometimes people find it necessary to travel 1 or 2 miles just to buy a lousy loaf of bread. A fine lot of good those parking lots are going to be now. They’ll become just another place for late night riff-raff to congregate, dump their garbage, and harass decent people who are unfortunate enough to have to brave walking through downtown at night for some reason.
It’s currently illeagal for kids to roller-blade and and skateboard on city streets and lands, so I suppose one of the parking lots could be converted into a place for kids to do such things; but inasmuch as the city elders have been so proactive in destroying downtown, while at the same time giving the bum’s rush to those parents and kids who seek such a place, I’m not holding my breath.
