Fight For The Park

Just a quickie. I haven't posted my thoughts yet on mall-moguls Simon Property being given one-third of the Capitol Commons Park between the Statehouse and the Convention Center to make their new corporate hq. Suffice it to say I think the idea stinks on many levels. I don't have time for details, but it appears a battle is brewing to save the 4.3 acre green refuge from the rest of the concrete jungle. While I'm hardly a hippy environmentalist, I do like and respect our green spaces. Call it a quality of life issue for me.

From noon to 2:30pm today at the park will be a petition drive. The organizers are not Greenpeace, the Indiana Environmental Council, or some small campus group, but State Rep. Phil Hinkle and State Rep. Tom Saunders. Both are Republicans. Nice to see an issue that crosses party lines.

But public opinion has to fight Mayor Bart and the Simon brothers. The mayor is adamant that this project will move forward. A huge uproar, a battle against impossible odds and entrenched social/political forces, the little people stepping up to the plate: my kind of fight :)

I may have to swing downtown and scratch my name before my interview. Why don't you?

EDIT: 6-08-2004 You can't call me a hypocrite as I put my money where my mouth was, or at least my signature. You might have noticed me walking behind someone being interviewed by Channel 6. I had to track down one of the persons with the clipboard. Normally you have people running away from the clipboard, but this dude kept wandering away before I could reach him!