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Well I write this letter with a slightly heavy heart. I spent a lot of time with Al over at Wings Hobby Shop talking about “The Good Old Days” and what has been going on in Lakewood for 50 years. In this city it is not hard to find someone who has been here 50 years, it is not even that hard to find businesses that have been in business 50 years. What is hard to find is people or businesses here for 50 years who understand why we have gone from a family-oriented community to one that has given themselves up like sluts to the bar business.
Ten years ago on the Observation Deck, we went into detail about various ways Lakewood could go, and if they pay dividends at the end of the various pathways. We found many ways to make Lakewood better, or more whole for the next 50 years.
Of course this was based on where Lakewood was ten years ago, and where we saw the world going in 10, 25 and 50 years. To date we have the world pegged at the ten-year mark. What was obvious to us then, and now, is that Lakewood’s glass is not half full but 87% full.
This made the task so much easier because instead of needing to reinvent Lakewood, we only needed to find about 2,600 new residents. Today that number is smaller, as people flock to Lakewood for the schools, the library and the great healthy living.
While at night, spurred on by the people the residents elected, the city caters to drunks and those from out of town, who only care about getting smashed, picking up a member of the opposite or same sex. Now that they don't have to worry about driving or walking from bar to bar, they will be more than fully loaded at the end of the night when they finally get back into their own cars to drive through our streets on the way out of Lakewood, back to their own homes.
Of course this will change if City Council can move the call girl business from Clifton Blvd. to DowntowN Lakewood. Where was that cool fancy hotel going to be built? Oh that’s right, as a part of the INA medical building. How appealing. At least they can get their antibiotics on their way out of the place.
For some strange reason, not really, this city gave up on residents and catering to residents. I have no idea why; residents had always been the heart, soul and backbone of Lakewood.
But about ten years ago a very, very small group of very small-minded people tried to convince Lakewood that Commercial Economic Development would keep our taxes low, pay for schools and parks and make our lives easier, better and more rewarding.
Commercial Economic Development would be our savior. It should be noted that Lakewood was not in need of a savior, just competent leadership. Instead we got one group using many names to pound home their lie that Commercial Economic Development would save us. No matter how many times it was pointed out that it rarely saved any inner ring suburb, and it ALWAYS costs more to maintain than residential neighborhoods, the lie was pushed and pushed and pushed.
And can you blame them? How much fanfare is there in keeping a neighborhood safe when you can line up at the grand opening of Five Guys, Something Smoking, 56 West? You know, the true pillars of this community for decades and decades.
No, we will take the focus off housing and place it on DowntowN. We will balance our books on the backs of the residents, making them carry trash to the curb. Who cares what the streets look like? We will stop their garage sales. Why should they have the same rights as businesses? No yard signs. Meanwhile the bars put signs up all over town, all over the front of their buildings, and even into residential neighborhoods.
No need to help seniors. One City Councilman even made it his personal vendetta to stop benches for walkers and seniors, and then sided with RTA in the lie that the Community Circulator was not profitable in Lakewood. They have even been helping churches leave, and with getting Lakewood’s new churches into store fronts while hoping for brew pubs in the old churches.
And now, they use residential dollars to make sure the number one problem in Lakewood is not just catered to but catered to like kings. The drunks. As predicted, first the bars, now the cost.
The single biggest problem in Lakewood is not the residents, but making sure we can get drunks from one bar to the next, drunk and buying! As we need them to buy and be drunk, we will make it free, so they can save the $2 normal fare for one more beer.
Well they have one thing right. Drunks are a huge problem. According to one Lakewood Police Sergeant, the single biggest problem in Lakewood from the law enforcement side is alcohol. He figured it is involved in about 80% of the crime in Lakewood. 80%! Between DUIs, Domestic Violence, Breaking and Entering, car theft, and assault, alcohol figures into 65% of the crime in Lakewood.
I said, “Surely you mean drugs?” and he said no, alcohol, easily.
And this is another hidden cost no one at City Hall is willing to talk about. The cost of maintaining drunks. It is a huge burden on the police, who are paid with our taxes. It is a huge burden on our safety because of the “80%” but also because with every drunk call we lose police in our neighborhoods.
We have traded good neighborhoods for lower than minimum wage jobs for bar employees and to enrich the bar owners with profits that just never seem to trickle into the City coffers, or the residential neighborhoods as promised.
Mark my words, this new bar-based economy will see us needing taxes raised, and I am sure they will use some really cool idea, but the fact is our civic leaders have lied and sold our community for a handful of magic beans, that will never deliver on the promises they made.
No, talking with Al was both good for my soul, and troubling. We lose another family business, and there are a few more getting ready to leave that have been here for awhile. And I am sure each one of these businesses will be filled with another way to get drunk and/or eat beef.
I am sure they will have the same great dedication to being part of this city that Five Guys did, but it will never rise to the level of Ron or Al Cireccia who were real members of the community, serving the needs of the community.
No, those days are quickly disappearing as this issue's Rob Masek Lakewoodites cartoon underlines. When he sent this to me his message was a simple: “Lakewood loses more history…”
The warm weather is finally here, and with it comes walking and playing as Lakewoodites come out of hibernation. It also brings the midge and drunk season. Enjoy.
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