by Joann Conrad

Created on: January 02, 2009

We need a place for would be teens smoking pot in public to recreate in a healthy enviornment and we need library branches that draw teens in with easy computer access. We live in a city that allows new building of strip malls and then allows the owners of the abandoned properties to avoid taxes, create health and safety issues and destroy communities because they build with no eye to the future and often thier building is just intended to be a short term investment and a long term tax loss a shell came and who lays fallow in the end our teens end up laying fallow.

Springfield, Illinois once had a lovely neighborhood on South Grand complete with movie theater, library branch, restaurants and other small business now that is gone and we have a bar holding up one corner. Yes some of the other buildings hold businesses but not ones that support the average needs of recreation and living that the community requires to be drug free and happy! We tried to see a boom in that area but once that library branch left no matter what was tried for teens failed! Throwing folks in jail, and creating fines is a negative way to improve our communities resources.

We should establish "Village Greens" a modern way to create shopping, recreation and community enhancement. The idea is to encourage four inner city green areas north, south, west and east. We would have a simple park with hand ball, tennis courts, an outdoor pool and locker room a concession stand coffee/cafe area and a small strip shopping center with a city branch library a small bakery a ethnic food restaurant and a small general store that is not a chain...Micro manage and develop these stores with thirty year contracts to encourage business longevity and dedication to the community. Plenty of park benches, plantings, shade, bike paths to from and around and sheltered bus stops and public rest rooms and water fountains should be a no brainer part of the deal!

We need to fine land lord who are out of compliance with code and we need to create green rules for them to follow! By fining absentee landlords, fining landlords who do not use and improve their buildings and fine anyone who has a building that was built to be a business and lays fallow...as a storage area etc...buildings that are built to hold a movie, or a supermarket should be zoned for that and used for that if not they should be fined. Owners who rent should be fined and jailed if they are out of compliance on improvements as should owners who have empty buildings...this will support local libraries! Give kids and the adults who lack affordable recreation outlets. There is not one 24 hour public gym in this city ( we have a 24 hour jail)yet we expect our citizens to be healthy, wealthy and wise (we still have no community garden and no funds to build one...our citizens are prime for a stoning of the gray matter) ! Stop thinking jail, fines and start looking for the real evils! Our weeds are land lords who bolt!

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