This was a busy day downtown and a busy day on Facebook in the effort to Save Rome's Central P{ark!
From Facebook
Jim Curry
Want to be a part of making history today? You can by voting in our Sunday election AND by voting ONLY for the 3 challengers for Rome City Commission, sending a strong message that Rome's Central Park is NOT for sale and commercial development. YOU can make a difference, but you must first decide to make a difference. Please share this message. Support is needed NOW.
Joe Cook
Proud to be Terrell Shaw's friend and inspired by he, Stacy Cates, Laura L Adams, Jim Ware and the host of others working to save Rome's Central Park. This is good old fashioned citizen activism the likes of which Rome has not seen in recent memory. SUPPORT THESE NEIGHBORS AND FELLOW ROMANS! VISIT Save Rome's Central Park on Facebook.
Comments:
Chris Cole: Two pretty cool fellas right there!
Frank Logue: This photo makes me very happy for all kinds of reasons.
Terrell: Hey, Frank! Wish you were here for this battle!
Frank: Me too
David Minich: hold them accountable !
Annie Shields: Get him to talk to your phone camera, Terrel.
Terrell: Alraedy did, Annie!
BTW my beautiful wife photobombed this while munching on a Schroeder's sandwich.
My Own Page
Ruth Pinson is not only a wonderful teacher, but among grandmothers she is one of the greats in the history of the class. Here her grandson Briggs and his sister Eva, after a fascinating tour of our endangered 80 acres, allowed me to video their comments. Click the picture below to hear them...
Comments:
Amber Clark Ware: I enjoyed meeting and watching Briggs and Eva take part in the tour; they were so interested in everything that Joe and Amos were saying!! Great kids!!
Jane Wood: Good interview
Ruth Pinson: Thank you Terrell!
Nancy Runninger Watson: Those kids are truly informed about our environment!
Beth Cox: Great interview! Good to see you yesterday, Ruth. Wish we could have caught up more!
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Yay, Chad Nash just voted for three new guys for the City Commission. He wants our Central Park preserved!
Abeed Bawa: Thank you, sir.
Joan Shaw Turrentine: So did Jim and I!
Terrell: Thank you Joan & Jim!
Craig McDaniel: Thank you all!
Terrell: It's official: More people have liked this picture of two folks who voted for our three challengers than managed to get out today to actually vote. Now I know the folks who are following this are likely the ones who have or will vote, but the apathy of voters is a real drag on our democracy. So keep up the hue and cry folks! Let's get some folks to the polls. Two of our current commissioners were elected by seven and four votes. One received only 1245 votes total out of 35,000 people in the city. That's a shameful turn out. Let's get our neighbors to do better this time!
The encouraging thing is that in an off-year, one-issue election like this an individual's vote is more powerful than ever!
Ro Rob: Nice to see you doing your thing on Broad Street this afternoon. If you recall, I was wearing a shirt that you seemed to like
Beth Gibbons: Not to nitpick...but "three new people" probably better than "three new guys"...shout out to Sundai and the other two people...bg
Sundai Stevenson: Thank you Joan & Jim. I appreciate your support!
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Annie Shields expresses her reasons for supporting preservation of Rome's park lands. Click the picture to hear Annie:
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Come join me! Let's save our park!
Comments:
Vivian Armstrong: I so enjoyed your story at Cave Spring last nite. Thank you
Terrell: Thanks, Vivian. Christy Davis is my hero. That event is absolutely wonderful. Folks, if you missed Cave Screams this year, put it on your calendar for next year. It's a hoot.
Christy Davis: Lol! Gosh, thanks! I credit my elementary Kaleidoscope teacher for fostering my creativity...
Terrell: Easy voting all this week folks! 8-5 daily, M-F. Just drive right up to park on this block, right up from Jeffersons. Go upstairs in the yellow-brick courthouse, and VOTE. Five minutes tops.
Help us put three new commissioners on the job. We need a new perspective. We'll still have six incumbents, but the vote, assuming no changed opinions, will become 4 anti-park, 4 pro-park, and 1 guy seeking a compromise. And i think with a strong pro-park vote some of the current commissioners may rethink their position. As it stands now we have seven folks who want to sell 80 acres of your land and mine, clear-cut most of it, fill it with hundreds if not thousands of truckloads of fill to get most of it about level with Riverside Parkway, and build for private profit gated apartments, a strip mall, and out-parcel restaurants.
Seven of our commissioners actually have voted repeatedly to enable this to happen! It is mind-boggling.
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We're even going after the votes of folks admiring our Confederate Roses from the Riverwalk behind our house!
No incumbents! Vote TODAY!
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SUNDAY VOTING TODAY!
Are these eighty acres, that belong to the citizens of Rome, blighted?
No.
The commissioners like to say: "There was only one plan submitted!" They make sound as if there was no choice but to accept the plan that a private company has to make a profit for that private company off of the land that belongs to all the people of Rome from the guy living under the Turner-McCall bridge to the guy in the big house with llamas in the back yard on the Kingston Road. And to our children. And to their children.
Every time there is a vote there is more than one option!
The obvious, always available, other plan is to leave things as they are. In this case to leave this land in the hands of the people whose dreams can one day make it even more than the blessing it is.
And what a blessing it is!
• holding flood waters that would otherwise flood other parts of town
• filtering our sediments (our biggest water pollution problem) and pollutants as the water returns to the river
• slowing the receding waters helping to avoid erosion and scouring of our waterway banks
• sheltering our best mosquito controllers dragonfly nymphs, mosquito fish, etc.
• sheltering abundant wildlife like the beavers (whose new and even ancient, dams participate in the slowing of waters mentioned above) deer, fox, rabbits, salamanders, frogs, butterflies, dragonflies, muskrats, small fish, Great Blue Heron, Great Egrets, ducks, geese, songbirds of all sorts...
* providing a green respite along our busiest thoroughfare, Turner-McCall Blvd.
• providing a green, tranquil backdrop to Jackson Hill, our amphitheater/labyrinth, our events in Ridge Ferry Park.
• providing visual and auditory buffers to the Ridge Ferry Events, pulpwood and coal ash trains from Inland and Plant Hammond.
• providing school kids a place to explore the great outdoors right in our city's heart through school field trips (I am helping with one tomorrow there!) or through activities organized by our fantastic ECO Center right across Riverside Parkway!
• providing space for dreams of a wonderful large beautiful Central Park!
...and more.
I'll bet you can think of even more ways this eighty acres of ours could be great for Rome in the long run... if we preserve it.
This is SUNDAY VOTING DAY!
Take advatage if it.
This your opportunity to honor little Jemmy Madison the small guy with big dreams whom we call Father of the Constitution. Show that you actually believe in our democratic republic.
Walk up the hill toward the county administration building, feeling the effort of the climb up the sidewalk, up the steps of the yellow-brick building, up the big stairs to the left: what is that effort compared to the struggle of patriots, slaves, immigrants, freedom marchers, soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen over these 240 years to secure your right to vote.
Cast your vote of protest. Say NO to the sale of our park land by voting for only the three challengers.
Actively withhold those last three votes from the incumbents, fine folks in other ways, who have made the grievous error of countenancing the destruction of 80 acres of our floodplain, wetland, pretty pond, mature forest, and parkland dreams.
Go exercise your God-given rights this holy day.
How appropriate: Vote on Sunday!
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You can vote THIS Sunday!
Message us for Ride to the Polls or a Yard Sign - City of Rome addresses only.
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