4:21 PM |
So went the caption on a picture from the semiannual community publication two towns over. Now you understand the kind of place I live in. The new trash cans mark the culmination of a $1.5 million streetscaping project. Believe me, I'm all for nice streets but we have a heck of a lot of nice farmland around and it doesn't need $1.5 million of beautification. I'm guessing this is another "shovel ready" project for the federal incentives. At the end of last year, Pennsylvania hadn't used up its money so it funded lots of projects That Can Be Done Right Now. But I would be guessing wrong. The community and county coughed up the dough for, among other things, new parking meters. The stimulus money went to other non-essential projects like the renovation of my stream. $235,000 to be exact. I now have a marsh where my stream used to be but at least I won't be losing my big trees or my neighbor's horses to rogue flow.
I tried to find the photo of the trash cans, benches and planters from the newsprint magazine to show what they look like. The last online publications were from 2010. So I googled images. Low and behold, an article about the controversy over new park benches. It wasn't in the proper town, though. In 2001, the following was written in The Baltimore Sun:
OXFORD -- A squabble over park benches placed near the elegant homes that line the banks of the Tred Avon River has turned nasty in one of the Eastern Shore's oldest and prettiest towns.Some waterfront property owners are hopping mad about losing their privacy in what they say is a power play by Oxford's three-member commission. But town leaders dismiss the complaints as little more than elitist whining, a case of not-in-my-back-yard sniping from nouveaux Oxfordians who have little regard for the Colonial-era port's traditions
...At issue are 16 park benches town officials ordered this summer, most of them installed at the unpaved sections of streets that end at the river or along Town Creek...
Both sides seem eager to settle the matter before a judge in the county courthouse a few miles up the road in Easton
...
A caption in Wednesday's Maryland section incorrectly described a park bench in Oxford as one that has caused controversy in the Eastern Shore town. The bench in the photograph is not one of those in dispute. The Sun regrets the error.
Really want to see those park benches. It got me wondering. Are benches inherently controversial? Googled. Controversies galore.
Macon, GA:
The dust has settled and the sun is setting on the controversy surrounding the removal of benches in front of the Dempsey Apartments in downtown Macon.
The benches were removed by the mayor’s office at the request of the property manager for Barkan Management Co., the owner of the Dempsey, because of concerns that the benches invited drug dealers and vagrants to hang out there. After community activists rallied around the Dempsey’s elderly residents, local politicians took up the cause and demanded the return of the benches.
This week, the Urban Development Authority — which installed the benches with a streetscape project — reinstalled the benches on the corner of Third and Cherry streets. This time, the benches were placed to create more room for handicapped parking and the 10-minute parking spaces in the front of the Dempsey where residents are most likely to wait for a ride.
And there's more: Santa Barbara Bench Removal Proposal Fuels Controversy on State Street.
In Spokane:
And don't get me started on trash cans.