Biggest Lakewood Story of 2012?

[Michael Deneen]

The year is almost over, the traditional time for "best of" lists.

The Observer has documented another year of Lakewood news.
What do you think was the biggest local story of the year?

Potential nominees include (but not limited to):

*The controversial development projects on Detroit Avenue (Drug Mart, GE, McD's, etc)
*The "no parks after dark" story
*The widespread storm power outages
*The 4th of July Fireworks Show
*Resurrection of St. James Parish

My vote would go to Detroit Ave. development. These projects will impact the city for decades.

St. James is my "Most Pleasant Surprise" of the year.
Due to my cynical nature, I had always assumed the Catholic Appeals process was just a dog and pony show. I'm glad to see that I was wrong.

[Jim O'Bryan]

Michael

I would agree that St. James is the comeback story of the year. No one outside of the
parish gave them a chance to get it reopened. Just goes to show that the power of people
over the power of countries errrr principalities. After all the Vatican is a sovereign principality.

I would say the park closing is tied in to many other stories that all seem to center around
a person's inability to handle even the most mundane tasks like heading up a committee. In
what has to be one of the largest displays of arrogance I have witnessed by a city official,
closing two parks without ever walking into them might take the cake. To deprive a city
of 51,000 simply because one small mind could not think of "anything good that can happen
in a park after dusk." Would seem an extreme abuse of power given by those people.

.