This Website Has Been Hijacked

Okay, do not worry. Since this blog has been dead as a doornail in recent months I have decided to Hijack it and post the truth, some news, and maybe some gossip. Mon ami, monsieur Jeff removed all of his excellent comments in disgust some time ago. (Despite what anyone might think, HPLA did not remove them, HE did), and because i can be a little more diplomatic than he can at times, I have decided to post my own items of interest until sometime either shoots me in the park, or stops me online.

Now, to the business at hand, despite the look of a slight gentrification, despite susbstantial financial investment by relatively new residents, despite endless meetings of committees and concerned citizens, and despite garbage cans in the park, Poplar Lawn is not getting better, it is getting worse. Prostitution, albeit of the skankiest variety (Charlotte the Crack Whore aside—she falls into a class of her own) has dramatically increased. More important, crime, robbery, noise pollutiion, and obvious drug trafficking has increased as well. The media in Richmond and elsewhere periodically points to a Renaissance of sorts occurring in Petersburg, but they are really only talking about downtown where a few risk-takers are opening new businesses. The rest of PB is still going to hell in a hand basket and Poplar Lawn, unfortunately, rides at the forefront.

So, if any of you care to join me, let's start naming names and showing a little guts. Mon Dieu! I will begin with my own pet peeve— Tulip Alley—that Twilight Zone that rests behind the nice houses of Marshall Street. Just as in the animal kingdom, every city must have an asshole. For Petersburg, it is Tulip Alley. Aside from being the listed address of a registered sex offender, (who also happens to work for one of our local "contractors") the Alley has been the regular center of drugs, prostitution, and all that goes with it, for years. So who owns these rat's nests? The guy at the end of the block, a so-called preacher named Alfred Woodard. Does he get a cut of the action? Who knows, but he's paying for those fancy cars behind his house somehow and certainly from more than passing around the offering plate.

And, while on the subject of slumlords, what's the deal with Bayou Properties? You know them, they own a ton of ramshackle houses around town, including the beat-to-hell green Victorian near the end of Marshall Street. They are also reputedly drug dealers in Richmond. Can anyone of you say otherwise? Then do so.

Wake up Poplar Lawn. Apply pressure, bug the cops, email the city council, make noise. Afterall, all the bad guys do, Maybe the only way to get rid of them is to drown them out.

I'm back and I'm pissed. Now let's see what happens next.

ROQUENTIN