The Observation Deck

Chris

The connection is noise.

Joe Beno, made a recommendation based on no facts. ZERO. Not even real life experiences.
Two of the three members of the safety committee never walked into the parks they were
supposed to evaluate to check on Joe Beno. Another fact. The rest of City Council then
supported the findings(?) of the committee and voted to support their decision. The only
person that took the time to walk into the parks, pleaded for more time for it to be studied.
Instead they rubber stamped the closing of the parks with NO VALID REASON outside of
the person charged with keeping them clean said he had no time for those two, while it
would seem his staff with his knowledge had plenty of time to be outside of Lakewood
during work hours.

Chris, sugar coat it anyway you want, but one person took hundreds of hours of legal park
usage away from all Lakewoodites. For NO VALID REASON. i will say that the rest of
Council and the Mayor who could have stopped it are complicit, but Joe Beno, basically
gave himself a raise, while raising our taxes. After all, if you get less for the same amount
of money, the cost of those services you are getting just went up. I have spoken with
every member of council that matters, this, like Lightspeed seems to be another oooppps
moment. I do hope they revisit it before they spend the money on signage instead of keeping
the parks open and clean.

A city's number one duty is providing service to the residents and businesses. However in
a real community it is slanted towards residents, as they vote. When a city continuously
cuts the services to residents while giving more to business, it is my belief they have lost
their way.

.

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_________________
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident

"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg

"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Jim, I am not trying to sugarcoat anything. I understand the point you are trying to make, yes, I agree, there probably should have been more time allowed and more research done before voting on the parks issue. However, to pretend that the rest of council didn't play a role is in accurate and irresponsible, as is your miss information and trying to connect this issue to every other single issue in Lakewood.


http://youtu.be/G2y8Sx4B2Sk

Who is Miss Information?

So its obvious that Jim just has totally lost his grasp on reality, but does anyone have insight as to the motivation to be so incredibly inaccurate and misleading?

Man, I was legitimately looking forward to shooting some great time lapse footage of the beautiful views of the lake and skyline (that I terribly miss since moving to Nashville), but by the sound of it I'd get a ticket or arrested or something.

So are we moving the 4th of July fireworks show to the 2pm time slot? I mean, people are already there for the parade, might as well kill two birds with one stone..

_________________
"Hey Kiddo....this topic is much more important than your football photos, so deal with it." - Mike Deneen

...Lakewood Park is still open to 11 people! The changes were made to Kauffman and Madison park.

I'm pretty sure this discussion is not about Lakewood Park as has been mentioned numerous times in this thread. So the fireworks will still be at the 10pm slot.

I would say that people on this thread should use more facts and fewer vague comments, but that would just be futile because no one ever listens. They just respond with vague reasons why they can't or why they don't have to because they other side isn't doing it either.

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I'm reading about myself sitting in a laundromat, reading about myself sitting in a laundromat, reading about myself...my head hurts.

Ah, I see.

I thought the changes were made to Lakewood Park, because I thought that's what the debate was at the beginning when closing the parks was first on the agenda.

Myyyyyyyyyyyy baddddddddddddddddddd. Sheesh. I'll go back to being out of the loop.

_________________
"Hey Kiddo....this topic is much more important than your football photos, so deal with it." - Mike Deneen

The real question is do adults need a curfew?

_________________
--
Jerry Ritcey

Thealexa

I would agree.

The facts - Joe Beno says he cannot maintain and control graffiti in Kaufmann and Madison
Park. Of course Lakewood Park is never mentioned, even though every thing they proceed to
find fault with at Madison and Kauffman is at Lakewood Park x2.

Based on the comment that City Service has to close Kauffman and Madison early at dusk
not because of safety but because of "loitering and graffiti" Council handed it off to the
Safety Committee, where to my knowledge and conversations with many, only one of them
actually went to the park to look around and investigate what they were given to look into.

Based on that study, 2 slackers to one hard worker, Council voted to take on the Joe Beno
suggestion, though most books about safety/security in urban environments would say
parks and streets are safer with more people in them not less. Vote 6 to 1 to close the
parks as early as 7 hours earlier in the winter, and 2 hours earlier on the longest day of
the year. No matter, it is Lakewoodites once again taking one for. Well in this case for
whoever is getting the free service outside the city from City Services.

More facts, since last December no more graffiti has appeared in Kauffman Park, and
nothing to speak of in Madison Park. So the cost of keeping these two parks clean was
both greatly exaggerated by Joe Beno, and probably never really an issue if he hadn't
been ordering his crews out of the city for favors. Which I have to admit were noble had
they not cost Lakewoodites on average 4.5 hours x 2 of park usage a day.

To be honest it has always been my hope after talking with council members that believe
this is now a mistake, the mayor, Joe and others that one besides David Anderson who was
on the safety committee to come forward and say. "Maybe we were a bit hasty, maybe
this one needs to be put on the back burner for another 12 months while we study it."
I am not sure that as outrageous as you Thealexa seem to think it is.

Here is what I know, if you close a park, there is no chance for it being used and enjoyed
more. So the argument of who uses it is moot. You have in fact killed the only real park in
"Downtown" Lakewood the city that is LakewoodAlive, and LiveWell, Bike Lakewood, Walk
Lakewood, Kauffman dies. You get home from work at 6 and have 1 hour before the park
closes? Why go? And that is when the trouble starts in the parks no one goes to any longer.

One is even more troubling is the constant mixed messages from city hall and civic leaders.
Are we an active city? Do we care about green space and green living? Are we
trying to build a cool destination? home? the largest collection of Dollar Stores in 2 miles?
Why is City Hall/Schools basically the same unit joined through Mike Summers
continuously screwing with the people in the center of the city? Making long standing
residential commercial drive thru, closing their parks, closing their schools?

The facts, and you will not find them with Council or the Law Director cause they never
looked for them, which was their job, is this was just a very poor series of very lazy
decisions by a group that seems more eager to rubber stamp damn near anything that
will hurt the majority of the voters and give them something anything they can cut a
ribbon over or put their name on.

FWIW



Or why does this city think we are all breaking the law and cannot be trusted?

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_________________
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident

"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg

"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Not to be nit picky, but since this thread has seem to have taken a turn to discuss what makes up a fact...



This would be an opinion supported by conjecture based very loosely on a few facts, none of which are actually listed in the statement.

FWIW

That's only funny because it's true.

This seems to be a case of "well I don't have facts because the other guy won't give them to me!" Which then begs the question of whether or not the facts are what you think they are, since you don't know them.

This is why I like real numbers and verifiable documents. Not the mention of numbers, but seeing actual data from a credible source. It is much harder to dispute something like that.

But anyway, back to the discussion about Kaufman etc...

_________________
I'm reading about myself sitting in a laundromat, reading about myself sitting in a laundromat, reading about myself...my head hurts.

Chris

The statement comes from someone with QSL that was talking if the Lakewood location
works out there could be room to put a patio into the parking lot. As the parking lot is in
back, I take it that is what they meant. No matter, patio or drunks getting into their cars
and leaving, ala QSL mode, creates noise way more than kids playing basketball. So even
if they never get their dream patio, though Lakewood seems willing to give any chain
anything noise is a factor.

Thealexa

I put facts out there, no graffiti for over 6 months. The reason given for closing early
"graffiti and loitering" Loitering is laughable in a park.

I have documented with the help of other "officials" the tree trucks spending a lot of time
helping outside of Lakewood.

I would hope that city officials would at least look into new laws that limit the movement of
law abiding citizens, before the go through the time and expenses of changing laws. After
all it is why they were elected to look at things and think.

So if the facts now fall to the residents because council is too lazy, or too uninterested in
residents and the services they are suppose to provide. I am more than happy to rest this
argument on the side of ZERO graffiti in 6 months would prove Joe Beno wrong.

But why let facts get in the way of a good discussion.

.

_________________
Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident

"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg

"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
His Holiness The Dalai Lama

Jim, I don't want you to get me wrong. I think you may have some valid points when discussing the park issue, and as I have stated before, I personally dont think that ordinance should have passed. My issue time and time again comes from spouting inaccurate or made up facts. Such as below.

Originally you said this...



This sounds like a seriously legit fact. You apparently had heard from someone in the city that they approved variance to QSL for a rear patio. The only issue being that they never apply for a variance or ever included the idea of a rear patio in any of there plans.

After long and drawn out pushes by many here for you to use real facts we finally got something I believed to be much closer to the truth.



I believe this could be a true statement, however it in no way indicates that they included a rear patio in their plans or even asked for a variance let alone have one approved. All I ask is that you spread truths and facts and state your opinions as such, opinions. It does nobody any good to spread misnomers and false facts. In fact it hurts the city as a whole putting person against person.

If you want to get the the extra hours back in the parks you are going about it the wrong way. You need to do it the same way the dogs in the park did it, and the Lakewood dog park people did it, and the way the egg laying hens people are currently trying to do it. Get a group of people who share your view point of leaving the parks open later and have them collect lots of research, do their homework, show up to Council meetings share their findings and continually lobby for them to reopen them to their previous hours.

This has shown to be a timely process but one that works. Barking complaints to a corner of people who talk but don't act does not accomplish anything. Try talking to the Friends of Lakewood Park and the Friends of Kauffman Park about organizing people, signing petitions and lobbying Council to change it back. That is the only thing that will be productive.

Jim,

Lakewood Ward 2 Councilman Thomas Bullock said, "It's not about passing a lot of new ordinances ... we have plenty of those."





And, yet, it seems that City Hall is passing plenty of new ordinances in lots.

At least City Hall is not looking at passing an ordinance to limit garage/yard sales ... oh ... wait ... "Lakewood law department submits proposal for garage, yard sale regulations" ...

Matt

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"Thank you to the publishers of the Observer and the readers of this forum for giving me a place to share my opinion." At-Large Lakewood City Councilwoman Monique Smith.

"Fiddle while Rome burns? Durn tootin' I will." Gary Rice.