Leaning the bike against it is not a regular use of this wall. Vandalism is more common.
Every few weeks a bike ride takes me along the paved path behind Lowe’s in Albany, between the store property and the heavily wooded channel containing Periwinkle Creek.
And on Thursday the looks of that place, ostensibly part of Albany’s parks system, provoked me into saying this:
As I say on the video, this stretch of blacktop is an extension of the Perwinkle Bikepath all the way north to Ninth Avenue, where it stops.
If memory serves, the city required the path to be provided as a condition for approving the site plan and building permits for construction of Lowe’s home improvement center in 2015.
There was some wrangling about this, as I reported at the time. The city wanted an easement along that edge of Lowe’s property, presumably for access to the waterway for maintenance. Lowe’s insisted on deeding the strip of land to the city, which is what was done.
Opening that area and building the path sounded like a good idea at the time. But that was before the latter-day explosion in vagrancy and vandalism, for which out-of-the-way public spaces in the city are fertile ground.
Now the city or volunteers are stuck with painting over the graffiti and otherwise having to clean up the area along the path every few weeks. (hh)
Put a United States flag on that area maybe they won’t paint over it
To the bureaucratic mind this may be “vandalism.”
A form of civic disorder.
Uncivil.
A crime.
For progressive folks this art has value.
An act of rebellion.
Empowering.
A form of free expression that can have a positive outcome.
If I was on the city council I would create a Street Art sub-Committee of the Albany Arts Commission.
Include graffiti in the Arts Master Plan.
Hire a consultant from Portland for expert advice.
Create a city position to administer the program.
Yeah….that’s the ticket.
It has gone downhill. In the past few years I never take grandkids there. Shady people and drug paraphernalia everywhere so sad. Sure would be nice if the city took better care of their prior obligations instead of throwing money into a restaurant at the long ago train station.
Put trail cams around and make the graffiti artists pay for cleaning up the damage or doing it themselves. Of course that would mean the city would have to take resources from the Bureaucracy so that will never happen
Gee, maybe we should house people. They have to exist somewhere, but we keep driving them out of every place they can find to be. It seems our attitude is, “If they would rather die, they’d better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” (That’s from Scrooge—not the best role model.)
One has to ask the question…”How many of these vagrants does she open her doors too and house daily?” A better solution…Do Not Feed the Bears. ;-)
Or as my mother used to say to me, “Who’s we, do you have mice in your pocket?”
None.
Instead, our Governor Elect should round them up and ship them to Florida.
Planes, trains, automobiles. Whatever it takes.
That stunt seemed to work out. She should repeat it. Weather is better there too (minus hurricanes).
You must be joking. With who was voted in, expect NOTHING to change. We’ll be seeing the recall signs again after the first of the year.
Somewhat …. but again it worked out for Desantis and his buddy in Texas.
Of course a Dem govenor would not repeat the stunt.
As of 11/11/22 three camps exist. People urinating, defacating, screaming, fighting and vandalism almost everyday. Police are called, come out and camps are still there. Campers start fires to keep warm and sometimes get out of control and fire department comes to put out fires. Neighbors to this area are sick and tired. No longer a safe environment to be in.
What’s the lighting like at night down there? Light it up like downtown landing strips. If it doesn’t detract people from doing bad things, you’ll at least get a good look at them while they’re doing it.