Several local paint suppliers have teamed up with Keep Albany Dougherty Beautiful and Albany Mayor Willie Adams to make November “Spruce up Albany” month. The paint stores will offer discounts, and the Herald article about it says “The overall purpose of the program is for those living in the Good Life City to feel better about themselves, and for visitors to get a good impression, officials say.”
Here’s a thought. If you want people to feel better about themselves and for visitors to get a good impression of Albany, why not focus on things that matter?
Every day, we are plagued by more and more crime. Robberies seem an hourly occurrence. Shootings are far, far to common. Everywhere people look, there’s crime. And yet, the most significant anti-crime spending in the past 12 months has been for super-Segways and video surveillance cameras that monitor a low crime part of town and aren’t even manned most of the time.
We are bleeding jobs and what may be a terminal rate. With the lose of Merck and Cooper, we’re hurting. Manufacturing jobs are still possible, but they’re not going to just appear in Albany and beg to come here. Local officials have to hustle for those jobs. You get enough of those, not only will our local economy improve, but I’m willing to bet that crime will decrease a significant amount.
How about dealing with the perceived corruption in this town? The recent indictments against Buie and company are a great start, but they’re only a start. There needs to be more investigation by outside parties, ones who can’t be bought or corrupted themselves. Personally, I like the idea of the FBI, but I’m open to other folks too. We need to destroy even the perception of corruption to have a chance.
Everywhere you look, Albany appears to many to be a city in decline. In a cartoon in the Albany Journal, parallels are drawn between Albany and Detroit, and that’s not far from the truth. A coat of paint and some good intentions aren’t going to do it. We need actual plans and actual solutions. Is Mayor Adams even capable of coming up with anything like that? So far, I haven’t seen evidence of that. I’ve only seen evidence that he can stick his head in the sand and pretend a problem doesn’t exist with the best of them.
People of Albany, we deserve better, don’t you agree?
Tom – this is gov’t at it’s best. Constant campaigning and symbolic gestures with little to no substance. I HATE that I must agree with your last paragraph. But that said, i do indeed see us as a city in decline. No real answers for real people with real problems.
ps – did you mean to say, “Here’s a thought” for the opening of your second paragraph?
Doug: Thanks for that. I missed the “T” key somehow and spell check missed it because it was still a correctly spelled word. It should know what I mean, not what I said! Where is that AI we’ve been waiting on?
I don’t disagree with your post but lighten up a little. A little paint won’t hurt anything and may instill a bit of civic pride. It isn’t as though this spruce up campaign is offered as an answer.
I’d be willing to lighten up if this wasn’t part of the same symptom. There are so many efforts in this town to make it LOOK like a sweet little city, and there’s been a complete and total inability to actually get the parts that actually matter. People are more likely to take pride in a community that has lower crime and decent jobs than in a community that throws some paint on some buildings and pretends that this is enough.
Frankly, I’m sick of watching aspects of this city do this crap while ignoring all the important things. I wouldn’t care if we had a lower crime rate and some decent jobs around here. I’d still be annoyed by it, but it wouldn’t have gotten a post. But in our current state? Sorry, but this is something the city shouldn’t even be involved in.
Wow. To think all we need to do to feel “better” about ourselves is to slap some paint on the old homestead! And here I was feeling so very depressed about the state of affairs in the good life city.
I thought my feelings were a result of the terminal lack of jobs, the obvious corruption in city government, the escalating crime rate and all the gang and drug problems.
We could eliminate all the problems by sticking lipstick on a pig. And I always thought that doing that accomplished nothing. After all, it’s STILL a pig.
But the good news is that Judy “Toilet” Bowles got her name mentioned in the paper!!
Compared to that kind of publicity, all of the economic harm and job loss that she’s caused the community is trivial.
I ask again: can someone give me one serious qualification this woman has to be writing a sign ordinance?
How can THREE different paint stores afford to give discounts to every single person who walks in for a whole month? No one can afford to do that these days. She called it a partnership with government, I believe… Huh??!! Is there stimulus money involved? Typical liberal delusion — just slap on a coat of paint over rotting, termite-infested wood. It’ll look great!! mmm mmm mmm….