More than just a park

[rapturedbyrobots]

Hi DU. I was hoping to get some support from fellow DUers on an issue that is heating up in Durham, NC. The larger issue is that of gentrification and privatization of public resources for pennies on the dollar. The focal point of this particular struggle is the battle between local residents and a charter school over control of a public park. The school and out of state developers have a stronghold on the city council and on the local media. So, we are hoping that getting the story out over a broader network will help.

To make a long story short, this is what's happened so far. A real estate developer decides to move into a working class, primarily black and latino neighborhood with a long term project to gentrify the area after buying most of the property. As part of this development plan, the city sells him a building for way under market value in order to establish a charter school. The school's students are mostly rich and white and commute in, and the school has one of the worst white-black achievement gaps in the city. Immediately adjacent to the school is a public park, that the city committed to renovating and maintaining as a full-sized athletic field (which the city government admits there are too few of already). The problem, from the charter school and developer's perspective is that the full sized field is an excuse for the (mostly latino) soccer leagues to use it (they actually said this in a public 'town hall' type meeting), and that other low income residents (mostly black and latino) in the neighborhood make it feel 'unsafe' for them.

So, the school proposed to lease the ENTIRE park from the city for $10/year, scrap the full-sized field and implement their own development plan without neighborhood input. This motion failed at the last minute due to surprise neighborhood opposition at the city council meeting. Since then, a battle has raged between neighborhood residents who want a full-sized field and the charter school over who gets to determine the future of the park. The city, has continually defied its own adopted master plan that mandates a full-sized field in order to accommodate the charter school/developer. They even refuse to open the issue up to a fully public and democratic process of debate. Instead the city abdicated its duty and paid lipservice to public process by allowing the charter school to sponsor 3 'town hall' meetings for which they set the agenda, and picked the moderators.

At each of the meetings, a small group of charter school supporters (mostly people from outside the neighborhood that commute their kids in for school) was massively outnumbered by hundreds of neighborhood residents and supporters opposed to the public-private partnership for redeveloping their park and neighborhood. Still the city will not listen, and the residents brave enough to speak out against the systematic decimation of public spaces open to the poor and underserved are demonized in the local media.

For full details please see:
http://www.elkilombo.org/ondparkinfo/

You can help just by sharing this story, or sharing your own story of irresponsible development, gentrification, private appropriation of public land and resources, etc...

[Kali]

1. I'll kick this for you

Seems so wrong on so many fronts. Hope the locals can get heard/justice and the assholes can get over their fear and bigotry.

[rapturedbyrobots]

2. thanks for the kick

sad that this kind of story only receives 1 response on DU. think i'm going to hang it up and quit this site. seems like people are only interested in acting out the hackneyed script of simplistic D vs R mock battles. can't believe that real struggles like this are completely ignored.

this is wisconsin writ small. make no mistake, the same attacks against public employees and resources happening at the state level are playing out at the county, city, and neighborhood levels. these more subtle assaults are part of a larger pattern of private enterprise extracting value from public jobs, infrastructure, resources, and land. ignore at your own peril. goodbye!

[LiberalAndProud]

3. Who's on the city council, who's challenging? When's the election.

Are you canvassing for the challengers? Seems like this is an issue tailor-made to oust some horrible bureaucrats.