CRA director to address blight in our downtown

As a society, we all have our hands out in one way shape or form.  And the reasoning is, if we don't try to grab the cash to which we may be entitled, then the next guy will get the money. This has become an entitlement country. The grant comes from somewhere, some government entity or foundation--originated by taxpayer money. Maybe the grant is directly from the government or from a wealthy benefactor. Either way, you don't have to repay it.

The CRA just got a $165,000 grant to be used to hire a planning (planning firm--it's hard to take those guys sometimes) firm for the Lake and Lucerne corridors from A Street to Federal Highway.  It seems that Joan Oliva, CRA Director, says we have too much blight in the downtown and she wants the area transformed to art-related businesses. I agree with her on blight from A Street to Dixie Highway but not Dixie Highway to Federal on Lake and Lucerne Avenues, our major downtown corridor.

In our downtown, empty store-fronts happen because the rents are unaffordable or the businesses can not attract enough customers for their services or goods. Calling the downtown blighted is a big stretch. Dixie to A Street (I don't think of this as the downtown) has been taken over by immigrants and many blocks here have a lot of crime, slum and blight because we do not enforce laws here and essentially ignore this area. Their decision to paint the Shuffleboard Court Building in garrish colors did not help eliminate the blight and probably encouraged it.

Now as I have said before, the world is full of starving artists.  We have plenty of them in this city.  Everywhere you turn around, you bump into an artist or an occasional comic book writer.  And why would the CRA Director say anything  else--she wants more artists in our downtown and in the CRA district because you can get grants for art related endeavors. She needs the lucrative downtown tiff money in order to even keep her doors opened and pay her big salary. And this grant might solve it all, and possibly down the road, it might solve our Third World blight from Dixie to A Street on Lake and Lucerne, but it will be years in the making.