"Break bread somewhere else"...the politics of eminent domain.

Crossposted at DailyKos.

Last week I posted a diary about some eminent domain proceedings going on here.
City begins eminent domain proceedings, so they can build condos downtown.

Summary:

Lakeland's Downtown Community Redevelopment Agency has moved closer to taking private property for a plan that eventually could put 400 townhouses and condominiums on blighted land.

On behalf of the CRA, Lakeland lawyer Mark Miller on Thursday filed to begin the eminent domain process in circuit court in Bartow. The move marks the beginning of legal steps against five property owners who haven't negotiated a deal with the CRA to sell their properties.

This process is affecting nearly all of the downtown area in one way or the other. Once you start getting rid of all signs of the poor and needy, it sort of snowballs. The developers and the city planners find things work better that way. This editorial from the local paper does a good job of showing this exploitation of the homeless.

Break Bread Somewhere Else

Break Bread Somewhere Else

Give them this day their daily bread -- just somewhere other than behind the Greyhound Bus Station just north of Main Street in Lakeland. Until just recently, All Saints' Episcopal Church members had been been providing food for both body and soul on Tuesday behind the Greyhound station on Massachusetts Avenue.

..."Someone complained to City Hall. A code-enforcement officer paid a visit to the Greyhound station about a month ago. Because food was being offered at the gatherings, the meeting was moved to the courtyard of the Talbot House, which provides food and shelter for the homeless.

"For the Greyhound site to comply with city code, the bus station would need zoning for a "transient lodge or social service facility," said Tim McCausland, city attorney.

Also feeling the sting of Code Enforcement Office was a Sunday morning "sidewalk ministry," sponsored by the church. About four dozen people had been showing up for the Sunday ministry, held on the Lemon Street Promenade next to the church. That, too, was another food issue: Coffee and doughnuts were available.

Some parishioners think this enforcement about the serving of food outdoors downtown is because of the planned redevelopment of a nearby neighborhood, adjacent to the bus station.

"They just want to develop that area, and they don't want any street people there," Charlie Ware, 82, told The Ledger. "They're trying to attract a developer to build condominiums, and they don't want a potential developer to see the wrong image."

The editorial points out the hypocrisy of this because several downtown businesses are serving food outside now with the indoor smoking ban in effect. Many groups have events where food is served outside. A couple of the commissioners quoted at least had the decency to be concerned about it....that is more compassion than I have seen out of this bunch in several years.

The original article on this was in the paper on Saturday, and it amazed me that many neighbors and people I talked to this week were upset over it. People are noticing that our city and county leaders are devoted to the needs of developers and not so much to the needs of the needy.

Church Giveth, but City Taketh Away

LAKELAND -- Praise the Lord, but hold the doughnuts.

The city that prides itself on compassion toward the less fortunate has forbidden members of All Saints' Episcopal Church from giving sandwiches to homeless people.
The church's Tuesday morning feeding behind the Greyhound Bus Station on Massachusetts Avenue has been forced to move to the Talbot House, a downtown homeless shelter.

The city also asked church leaders to move the church's Sidewalk Sunday School, held at 9 a.m. every Sunday on the Lemon Street Promenade across from All Saints. The church has been told to move the service to the Talbot House.

The reason: The Sunday morning sidewalk service comes with coffee and doughnuts.

One of the city planners is quoted saying that the gathering is ok, but not the doughnuts and coffee. Maybe in the back of this planner's mind is the fact that coffee and doughnuts draws hungry people.



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