Trashcans, the saga continues

Oh, park trashcans.

You are both our greatest desire and our mocking nemesis.

Sometimes I fear the possibility of success, that your acquisition will only disappoint. It would be the attaining of the Holy Grail.

If we succeed and obtain you, what will we have to live for?

Oh, that's right. Park benches.

The story of the Central Park Trashcans is a tale of valiant board members and civic-minded neighbors, of epic proportions, of villainous city officials and enchanted negotiations.

It all started aeons ago, as the long-timers tell us. The HPLA board has inherited this task for multiple generations, each as discouraged as the last. We even had some of the coveted wrought iron ones given to us for a short time, two years ago, only to be taken from us because they were promised elsewhere.

We've involved the City Manager, our City Councilman, Public Works, you name it. We've called, written letters, and most recently even sent a map complete with indications of where the new trashcans are required and where the old, pitiful stumps of ugly can remains need to be removed. It was color coded and everything. We are still holding out hope.

The only time we ever get trash recepticles is if there is an event in the park. They give us those rolling contraptions for a short time. Then they are taken away again. That is where our story leaves us.

Today, those rolling plastic bins, left over from the Petersburg "Literacy" happening of last weekend, were going to be carted off.

Your board president (my husband) took to that Publics Work flatbed like knight to dragon. We still have the trashcans, for now.

This is getting silly, its true, but it is so important to have the park maintained. If the park looks like dung, honestly, we cannot fight off the drug dealers and prostitutes who are doing business in our neighborhood. Apathy promotes neighborhood deconstruction.

So, with that preachy little blog entry update, I beg of all of our neighbors to please contact David Canada, our City Manager. His contact info is listed below. Let him know you think it is unacceptable for our historic and beautiful park to be disregarded in the manner it has. Not just the trashcans, but please also mention the fallen bandstand that fell two and a half years ago, its remnants being used as a brothel and home for squatters.

It is not enough to complain about the situation, as we all do. Please act on your own, as we try to unite the neighborhood to act as a whole.

B. David Canada
Petersburg City Manager
135 N. Union Street
Petersburg, Virginia 23803

(804) 733-2301
ctymgr@earthlink.net

Thanks,
Mady