And when I started reading the article, I thought - 'that's nice.' However, near the bottom of the article was this:
"The judging criteria includes enhancement of the landscape, heritage management, environmentally sensitive practices, community sustainability, healthy lifestyles, and planning for the future.
An international panel of judges includes environmental and landscape management professionals."
Call me cynical, but now I understand why Carty was so insistent on planting flowers, building bikepaths and pushing his "Get Fit Toledo" campaign...
4 comments:
Maggie,
Call me cynical too. I've suspected something like this way back when the All-America City award was given to Toledo.
This just shows the lack of creativity on the part of the mayor.
It's all too easy to work off of a checklist to meet somebody else's criteria. Why can't we have a mayor that can do his own creative thinking?
The worst part of this is that the mayor passes this agenda off as if he came up with these ideas himself when in fact Carty has stolen them.
Why can't people just be themselves and let the chips fall where they may? That would be so much better than all of the hype, propaganda, and phoney-baloney that goes on.
Steal their thought processes, do not steal or imitate somebody else's work or ideas.
How many other cities entered this contest? Do we want Anytown, USA to look exactly like Toledo? It seems that we do by looking (sarcasm on) at just how unique and original all the new housing developments being built are. (sarcasm off)
One last thing. What works in one city, will not necessarily work for ours.
Besides, all of the fads and trends today will eventually wear off.
testing comment moderation...
I am probably as disappointed as both you and Jay Maggie, but maybe for a little different reason.
A discussion on a similar subject was held at a couple of the recent newspaper conferences that I attended. In that case, the discussion focused on the often single-minded desire of a newspaper to win a Pulitzer Prize, often losing focus on its own profitability in the process. In the end, those who were most concerned with winning the awards were the owners and managers seeking them, not the people that they served.
I am afraid that the city of Toledo is falling into the same trap. Today our mayor is holding a press conference to look for funding to travel to London in order to promote "the city's" efforts to win this award. I wonder how may of the Southwyck residents, or those who face flooding during the next heavy rainstorm will feel better if we win. I wonder if these, or the rest of us overburdened taxpayers, will consider the time and effort being expended well spent by the city government.
I wonder if city government has taken their eye off of the ball of serving its citizens in an attempt to win another empty award.
I too, feel this is silly. Almost repugnant. Not to be a hijacker, but I also covered my thoughts on it before I saw this post.
www.wannabemayor.blogspot.com
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