TEAR IT DOWN WHO CARES

Well it's a sad day for the community I live near (Crookston Minnesota). There's an old hotel in the center of town. It's in terrible disrepair but the frame is sound, it's even got an elevator shaft. Last night the county announced that they're going to tear it down. It will probably cost them a half a million dollars to do it. Here's the sad part.

If they put the same amount of money into a group/company/developer/individual, that individual could lever it into more than enough to make it a grand living space (yes for lower class incomed individuals)(GEE they need to buy food and clothes and gas and videos too!!) for many people, AS WELL AS having a ground floor area that could be rental of retail, restuarant, or civic use space. Our downdown is dying, and no one has a backbone to develop a vision to save it. Those that try give up quickly because of all the mountains that are put in their way. Taking out this core feature that occupies 1/4 of the major downtown block will leave the center of the city looking even more sad and open. Visitors and residents will then see the back sides of the other 3/4 of the block, a sight best left to movie makers and deliverymen.

If blame is to be put, I put it square on the shoulders of the local media. There's no one out there doing the job that media was supposed to do. In our neighbor city of Grand Forks, 2 giant building project happened almost simultaneously. Although I don't see eye to eye with talk show host Scott Hennen on a lot of issues, (who now is on the air on WDAY in FARGO) I can tell you that those two projects went through because EACH AND EVERY DAY he was on the radio pitching their value to the community. OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN he kept hounding and cajoling, interviewing and correcting citizens who "didn't get it!"

MEDIA is supposed to be for the underdog, they're supposed to stand up and fight for the little guy, to take the higher-ground path even when it's against the financial powers that be. But in out town, money drives the media. No one is going to say or do anything that might cause even one business man to hold up even one dollar in advertising. And because there's no one shouting for the high ground in our town, the residents have become complacent. No one cares, no one shows up, no one (or almost no one) writes letters of support, or donates their hard earned cash to such projects.

It's always been said that a strong willed media keeps our country free. It's such an old line but so true about the power of the pen (microphone?) overcoming the sword. In our town the destructive swords sweep across our landscape because no one with power is using their pen! It's a sad day for the community I live in.