Yes, I was being sarcastic, but only up to a point!!!

I certainly was not advocating that the City of Middletown take over the buildings.

I was trying to point out both the idiocy of the new Historic ordinance 1210 and the hypocrisy of the local “historic crowd”.

The new ordinance actually DOES require the permission of the Historic Commission, via a “certificate of appropriateness”, before a “historic structure” can be demolished, and that simple economics is NOT a justification under the ordinance. (Of course, this is unconstitutional.)

The Ordinance also mandates the following:

“The Historic Commission shall conduct a continuous survey of all areas, places, structures, works of art, or similar objects in the City which the Commission has reason to believe are or will be eligible for designation as historic sites, landmarks or districts.”

Therefore, it follows that, during the course of the commission’s “continuous survey” they should’ve noted these “historic structures”, recognized that they met the “criteria” outlined in sections 12110.05(a)(1) through (8), taken the actions necessary to have the structures declared “Historic” with or without the owner’s consent, or even over the owner’s objection (as clearly mandated in the Ordinance), and then made the owwner go through the very lengthy and convoluted legal process necessary to obtain the “Certificate of Appropriateness” necessary for demolition.

The Ordinance does, indeed, impose fines and prison sentences for such an offense exceeding all but those resulting from conviction of the most serious felonies in this state!!!

Of course, since all of this “history” hubbub actually has very little to do with history, and everything to do with the wants and desires of a small group of elitists, and they had nothing to gain by prevent the demolition of these buildings, not a peep was heard!!!

During the budget discussions last evening, there were questions about bike paths. Everyone seems to have forgotten that this money could have been used for items such as energy efficient windows or energy efficient HV&AC units for any of our municipal buildings, or a new energy efficient roof for a fire station, for example.  (These are items that actually were needed during the time period that the expenditure for the bike path was being discussed.) These types of items would have produced continued savings for Middletown taxpayers. As usual, though, instead of addressing the citizen’s “needs”, city staff slanted every recommendation and report to support the case of special interest “wants”. As long as city staff continues to put special interest “wants” ahead of the citizen’s “needs” Middletown will continue to face worse and worse “budget crunches” and will continue its downward spiral.