The Lens is retracting and apologizing to Candy Chang for an opinion piece about “parkettes” on St. Claude Avenue that appeared in this space Thursday.
The article contended that Chang, the co-founder of the design company Civic Center, is pushing an effort to build “parkettes” along St. Claude Avenue. This is not true. Civic Center is involved in a separate effort along St. Claude that was financed by the same grant that is supporting parkettes. In fact, the St. Claude Avenue Main Street organization is working to develop parkettes. Further, the piece implied that Chang or Civic Center is going to collect “a large portion” of the $275,000 grant. That is not true.
The Lens regrets the errors.
Despite these corrections, the opinion piece still brought up some interesting points about the grant and how it might be used. Too bad the whole piece had to be removed.
Also, to just say that Chang is not going to collect “a large portion” of the 275,00 grant kind of leaves us hanging…why doesn’t Chang tell us how much she’s getting and we, the people in the neighborhood, will decide for ourselves if it’s “a large portion.”
It was revealed in June at the St. Claude Ave. Main Street community meeting that Candy Chang was the intended recipient of $90,000 of the Art Place grant(that’s almost 1/3 by my math). This was announced directly by Alan Williams, Civic Center’s “Senior Community Manager”, who helped moderate the meeting. Ostensibly Ms. Chang’s participation was the catalyst for the grant since St. Claude Main Street, at this date still not an official 501c3 organization, has a track record of failed attempts at managing and disbursing money from its past incarnation as a community organization.
I would like to amend my comment with an apology to Mr. Williams. Alan is an adept and capable newcomer, among so many others, but apparently does not work for Civic Center. I do stand by my notes regarding Ms. Chang’s participation in the St. Claude Main Street grant however and perhaps Ms. Chang might like to emerge and enter the conversation. Consider this a post it note: “I wish this was a transparent issue.”
I regret the confusion caused by Ms. Horn’s article. It could have easily been avoided if she
Re: The Neighborland colonizers and St. Claude Main Street II. I think that there are a few things in need of explanation. First, who is Michael Martin, what is his
Skip, are you okay?
Skip, that was beautiful! thanks man!!! this situation is pushing me to think about leaving my home almost daily ;(
I am simply someone who wants to live and raise my kids in a neighborhood, diverse economically, racially, and culturally, and NOT a “scene”. And thanks Don, for caring. Meanwhile, raise your hand if you know that NOCCA, whose Board is strongly influenced, if not totally controlled by uptown monied interests (and here he is again, Sean Cummings), is quietly working to warp the Master Plan and change the Press Street corridor from parks and green space to anything and everything “mixed use low density” zoning. No one has to look further than a $3000 per month apartment in Mr. Cummings’ luxury Rice Mill development to guess who will be making big money off of that little maneuver. But who really needs that grassy, non-money making green space? After all it was just a useful lie to get the original Master Plan passed anyway. Park-ette anyone? A meeting to discuss this little issue is scheduled for August 21st, 7 p.m. at Holy Angels, 3500 St. Claude in Bywater if anyone cares to find out more about what’s going on behind the curtain.
I was the manager of St Claude Main Street from May of 2009 to June of 2011. During that time we were under the federal Main Street program, administered under the office of Lt Governor and we were eligible to receive grant money that covered the manager
Preach it, Skip Henderson! backed 100%
So…
I’ll agree it’s easy to toss around these Yankee newcomers as carpetbaggers. Because it’s easy to get nervous and feel “our” way of life is being threatened by “those people