Interesting exchange between activist Paula Marinoni and Fayetteville mayor Dan Coody was revealed in the Northwest Arkansas Times today.
Marinoni, concerned about the inclusion of the Evergreen Cemetery in the newly adopted “Cultural Arts District,” was quoted as asking, “What are they going to do with it? Have festivals in there?”
By way of response/non-response, at Tuesday’s meeting of the City Council, Coody said to Daniel Hintz (Director – Fayetteville Downtown Partners):
“Number One, if you do a stage act on my grave, I want it to be good jazz.”
I’ll bet that got a few cheap laughs.
The “response” from Hintz probably gave no one less cause to worry. According the Times:
“Hintz replied that the cemetery’s inclusion was to use the district as one more tool to protect the historic culture the cemetery represented “in some form or fashion.’”
Huh?
I guess folks living in that lucky hundred blocks or so that will be in the District had better gird their loins, since once again, something has been set in motion without having all those pesky little details in place.
When is the city going to learn?
And as for Comrade Coody and his “response” to a valid concern?
I don’t think it’s yet occurred to him that people actually remember such remarks, long after they are uttered.
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When I was nine years old, I read Madeleine L’Engle’s “A Wrinkle in Time,” and have been in love with it ever since. Recently I bought the four sequels to the novel.
How sad to read in the paper today that she has passed on, at 88.
I just feel like going back to bed for the day.