Post #262353 by Swanky on Mon, Oct 23, 2006 12:33 PM

Grrr... Here are examples of great city officials at work in Knoxville, TN:

Built new convention center next to old convention center and destroyed hotel to build a hotel and foot bridge to build a new foot bridge...

Spent millions renovating a nice mall downtown which hosts weekly free music events. They wanted to open the space more and make it more usable. Built a giant thing that is where bands set up at one end. It has a roof, that is about 40 feet up, thus preventing its ability to keep, oh, say, rain off anything under it. Also it has no support structure for lighting harnesses to be attached, or even electricity...

Oh, yeah, the above mentioned mall area. 10 years ago it was largely vacant because a couple of old coots owned most of the buildings and would not renovate or sell them. Lots of people were dying to get in and renovate and make the upper floors lofts and the ground floors retail. A couple were done that way. Finally we all said "horray" as the city condemned the properties these coots were sitting on and took them over... Well, then they hired a firm to study the best use of the area. They spent millions and it took years. Their final suggestion: Turn the upper floors into lofts and put retail on the ground floors! Thanks!

The 200 year old viaducts that connect downtown to everything else were a problem for the railroad. They were about 2 feet too short for the double decker cars to go through. What do we do? Lower the tracks 2 feet? That would take a week and cost a few grand and save the structures. No! We'll destroy them and rebuild theme at a cost of millions! AND! we'll do them all at the same time so that all of downtown can only be accessed by one road which requires crossing the river and going way the hell out of the way! PLUS! It'll kill all the businesses in the area! Horrah!

I luv the government...