here’s our :IVE! recap of what happened at the last Danville United meeting.
6:30 PM – We’re here first with River City TV’s Mark Aron right behind us. The snow and sleet is starting to fall.
6:45 PM – Good seats still available.
7:00 PM – Let’s get it started. Ron Johnson starts it off.
7:10 PM – Deputy City Manager Ken Larking starts tonight’s meeting about blight in the city.
Larking shows the correlation between city blight and crime. He’s being refreshingly honest about Danville’s problems. “Danville must reverse its population decline”
7:15 PM – Director of Inspections Jerry Rigney talks about buildings that look OK from the outside but horrible on the inside.
Community Development Director Earl Reynolds talks about the different departments and strategies to eliminate blight.
7:25 PM – Reynolds points out that Danville has to build on its existing economic strengths. Demolition of blighted structures is just one tool that’s used.
7:30 PM – Question time. One stupid question on *what does this have to do with diversity and race”. GAH! This has to do with the quality of life in Danville for everybody.
I asked a question about how the city is trying to recover their costs from absentee and hard-to-track-down owners.
7:45 PM – Moving to a breakout session with the audience.
8:15 PM – Recapping the discussion. Community pride plays a big role. One excellent point made was Danville doesn’t just have a property blight issue, Danville has a human blight issue. Ouch. Painfully true.
8:30 PM – Two race pimp questions on how this topic relates to Danville United’s mission. Even bringing up slavery. Dear god, my friggin head is exploding. GAH!
We’ll have an article on what I think about Danville United soon on SouthsideCentral.
Race pimp question??? Your head should have exploded…