Henry Frederick
henryfrederick@nsbnews.net
Henry Frederick, Editor/Publisher of NSBNews.net
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NSBNEWS.net photo by Sera Frederick. Your's truly stands near the newly erected $9,000 artificial Christmas tree looking across from the riverbank to Canal Street at 9 p.m. Tuesday, an unsecured spot where anyone had access at least through the early morning hours of Wednesday as of this blog posting.
Like many other New Smyrnans, I was immediately drawn to the newly erected $9,000 artificial Christmas tree, literally a couple feet from the riverbank facing Canal Street.
My wife and I were able to literally walk up to the 20-foot-tall tree at 9 p.m. I was able to lift up one of the fake branches from its hinge and I even unscrewed one of the light bulbs. Of course, I put everything back in its rightful place. I did this not to try and destroy public property, but out of sheer concern for the lack of municipal oversight in ensuring public safety.
Mrs. Frederick and I were on site for a few minutes, directly across the street from the Sheriff's District 5 building. What would stop kids or even an adult from trying to climb the tree? There are eight cylinders in the middle holding it up and a piece of wood wedged under one side of the base in an attempt to make it straight (it was still crooked). Also, wires were hanging from the internal part of the tree, nearly to the ground. At least four and possibly six city workers spent all day at the site, assembling it and trying to figure out how to wire it.
I called Mayor Sally Mackay when we got home and asked her why the tree wasn't at least cordoned off. She said she didn't even know it was put up earlier in the day, though she was aware it would go up temporarily sometime this week to see how it looked. She said she would try and call Interim City Manager Pam Brangaccio and if she could reach her, she'd call me back.
In the meantime, I called her mayoral challengers, Adam Barringer and Marilee Walters. Like me, they were stunned that it even went up Tuesday. They, too, were concerned that it was left unattended. Besides the safety issues, they were just as surprised as me that the tree actually went up just three days after Saturday's second and final primary candidates debate sponsored by the Public Watch Committee and NSBNEWS.net.
I was the interviewer of the nine candidates running for three seats on the commission and I asked every one of them whether they supported the $9,000 purchase of the tree by the Comunity Redevelopment Agency last May after the city was forced to use $1.3 million in reserves to cover this year's fiscal budget and potentially several million more to securea rolled-back rate for the upcoming fiscal year while city employees are forgoing raises, five open police jobs are going unfilled and drastic cuts were made to capital improvements.
I remember hearing a few light boos and hisses at the repetiveness of the question from several among the 100-plus in attendance at the debate because some saw it as overkill. How ironic and even prophetic that this issue would come front and center Tuesday on the second day of early voting, leading up to the Sept. 22 primary.
Mayor Mackay and Commissioner Jack Grasy were the only candidates among the nine (Barringer and Walters in the mayoral race, Zone 1 city commissioner candidates Frank Dalton Jr, Judy Reiker and incumbent Randy Richenberg and Zone 2 city commissioner candidates Steve Sather, Palmer Wilson and incumbent Grasty) to fully support the tree's purchase. Both said they felt it would generate business on Canal and bring residents together during the holiday season. The other seven candidates viewed the tree purchase as a waste of taxpayer money.
It will be interesting to see how much money was spent Tuesday utilizing city workers to invest the entire day on this project and how much more will be invested Wednesday taking it down.
I haven't the foggiest clue why the tree was put up in the first place, with Halloween 45 days away. I get nauseated seeing Christmas decorations going up even before Thanksgiving. So why now? Why just a week from primary day and during the peak of early voting with record numbers going to the polls this week?
Let's just hope the city has the site secured so nobody gets hurt trying to climb it or gets in trouble with the cops trying to get a piece of it. People do stupid things. Remember the drunken idiot injured when he fell trying to skateboard on the pitched roof of the Observer building a few months back?
