I pray to god, that no parent, student, guardian or other is injured on this night (or any other) because they were on or near campus picking up their recent graduate at the 4AM, Saturday night bar closing time. Think of the horrific outcome these elected officials would encounter if something did happen. My recommendation if I were one of these elected officials is to sleep with 1 eye open and hope that none of the hundreds of people involved in this event are injured because of their decision to allow people to booze it up until 4AM!!.

Please forward this reply to our elected officials and put them on FURTHER notice of how their incompetent governing affects our community.

Then there is the Downtown CRA which came into existence under a law suit which got negotiated – as I understand it.

http://consensus.fsu.edu/academic_directory/2004casestudies/GosfordCRA.doc

The Downtown CRA is that area BETWEEN the boundaries of the FRENCHTOWN /SOUTHSIDE CRA. As any breathing person can see, MOST of the new development has happened BETWEEN the original CRA neighborhoods.

I could go on and on, but two things are important here.
1. While flooding has been addressed and low income housing has been brought in line( Good Bread Hills) little else in Frenchtown has occurred. CRA staff have spent millions on projects that are on the borders of Frenchtown and have spent millions to move the shelter: 1.5 million to private foundations. In the meantime, Frenchtown continues to languish to the whims of private developers with ties to the city staff. The battle homeowners and business owners in Frenchtown are fighting have to do with getting the NEEDS of the community met. Infrastructure issues! Issues the money is supposed to address.
We are summarily ignored. We are victims in some grand plan that we did not devise. What you’re seeing has little to do with what we’ve asked for. Driving through the community is the ONLY proof you need to see that Frenchtown is NOT getting what it should have. Instead, we are the Blight needed to qualify for the money. Without that Blight there is no program. Believe me, we are not ignorant to our status and we continue to battle. We hope we are gaining ground, but it is too soon to tell. And by too soon, I mean 16 years!
2. The Downtown CRA has its own set of rules that allows them to “call their own shots” more or less. But then that “neighborhood” is not made up of minorities or those whose lives were curtailed by Jim Crow.

I haven’t looked at the state liquor licensing law; I was just passing along what the Mayor said last night … at least that’s what I thought I heard him he say.