New Branch Library For Stewart-Lakewood
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JOHNNY L.WILSON, Ph.D.
July 18, 2009
To Whom It May Concern:
I am writing this letter in response to a public acclaim or request made by the Perkerson Civic Association(PCA) and Mrs. Dianne M Bryant (Neighborhood Planning Unit X-Council District 12) to proffer my aim and support to specifically locate on land at the corner of Metropolitan Parkway and Avery Road, a public library to serve our academic, education, outreach needs.
This clarion belief that obtaining help from elected office holders to site locate such a facility at the corner of Metropolitan Parkway and Avery Road is foundational and “originate in the assertions or testimony” from Fulton County Commission, the Fulton County Library Board of Trustees, the Sizemore Group, Citizens of the Metropolitan Parkway and Avery Road Community and Neighborhoods, business and civic leaders, parents, teachers, students and friends of the library to champion the requisite cause celebration of using a”$275 million bond referendum to fund some eight new libraries in the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System, two expanded libraries and 23 renovated libraries, plus $85 million toward a new Central Library. It will be the largest library building program in state history; the last library bond in Fulton County was in 1985, for $38 million”(Blumenstein and Oder,”Atlanta-Fulton Aproves PL Bond” Library Journal(December 15,2008).
The site placement of sinages on the streets,sidewalks,alleyways,ingress and egress pathways, billboards,newspapers coupled by advertisement and messages imbued by the political education actions of 1380 WAOK and V103 radio stations were very instrumental in garnering the listening audience in the black community that live near-by, adjacent to or approximately within distance of the library proposed community chosen sited area (Metropolitan Parkway and Avery Road ), to use their vote as a rallying them or a testimony to be considered by the Fulton County Board of Commissions, Fulton County Library Board of Trustees to act now and build this facility. Black home and property owners residing in the proposed facility zoning code, work very hard,, send their children to school, attend church, participate in community and business functions and above all, believe that voting for passage of the Library Bond Referendum would simply , henceforth and forevermore, enable them to:
Moreover, they went ot the oupolls to answer the prevailling qustion posted on the Sample Ballot used these instruments as a vehicle to receive news, community information and public annuncements to the black communityled to their dwellers that listed to these vehicles for news, community information and public annuncements coupled by advertisement and messages andradioy and offering in the assertion of John F. Szabo, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System Director notion per se that when 65 percent of the voters in Atlanta-Fulton County went to the pools on November 8,2008 to approve a $275 million bond referendum that would fund eight new libraries in the Atlanta-Fulton Public library System,two expanded libraries,and 23 renovated libraries,plus $85 million toward a new Central Library,”they were in essence: the”65 percent of vote - the following:
“This vote affirms the value people place on their public libraries and their understanding of what libraries provide, especially in challenging economic times. This is a tremendous day for the children of Fulton County, particularly those served by severely inadequate facilities or no facilities at all,” said John F. Szabo, Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System Director.
The main epistemological problem of testimony is that an enormous number of our beliefs originate in the assertions or testimony of speakers, but our accepting or believing those assertions merely on the word of the speaker does not seem sufficient for those beliefs to be justified, warranted, or knowledge. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/testimony-episprob/
founders of the public library movement during the 19th Century.members of the Sustainable Atlanta’s Sustainable Building Taskforce (SBT) about the ASBO has to do above all, with many of our beliefs, concerns and skepticism about outsiders making decisions about how land and infrastructure in the Black community is to be planned and used. Relocation, resettlement and depopulation decisions linked to land use planning have always had their finger print associated with the involvement of ”architects, engineers, developers, lawyers, city planners, government, business, institutions, non-profits and organizations”. Many of these beliefs originate from the axiom, wording, concept formations, testimony of land use planners that use marketing or advertising tools to shape public perceptions, views and general opinions about the relationship between a modernization scheme, development, plan or program and the physical development of public infrastructures.
There are several epistemological problems that I belive mirrow this conception and belief and remain as a salient factor laten within the scope of the current organizational planning structure of SBT. Firstly, many of our beliefs about ASBO seem to originate from our conception of the historical role that members of the business community have played in the City of Atlanta in fostering building deconstruction, population relocation agenda setting and supporting the election of candidates that articulate their public policy posture.
The second problem has to do above all with the cadre of assertions, theoretical framework, and assumptions upon which members of the business community during the 1950-1960’s are being integrated within the task and mission statement of the Sustainable Atlanta’s Sustainable Building Taskforce (SBT) and fused within the ASBO. It is here, that many of our basic beliefs, values and skepticism about enabling ASBO to play a major role in the designed, guidance and implementation that becomes most troublesome. For example, as Clarence N Stone reminded us in his infamous book entitled: Economic Growth and Neighborhood Discontent, published by the University of North Carolina in 1976 that:
In 1952,the Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) came up with a general guide for future development. Although the commission’s report, Up Ahead, called for the conservation of existing neighborhoods and improved housing for all groups, it gave particular attention to the Central Business District (CBD), which it divided into an upper and a lower portion. The report stated: ”If these central districts are allowed to decline, the future health of the entire metropolitan area is in danger. The central districts are the core of Metropolitan Atlanta’s regional activity. They contain huge public and private property investments and account for at least one-fourth of the total taxable wealth of the two (metropolitan) counties. The report also gave explicit attention to the need for what it termed “Negro expansion areas.” Some possible areas were pinpointed, and a general policy was outlined”(p.48)
At best, much of this critique in which we have begun about ASBO and SBT, seems to willow around and rest upon many of the basic central premises in which MPC began to espouse in the 1950’s. Such a critique will also enable us to discern that ASBO as an instrument of the business community can only work if it is carefully constructed and disguised as a neighborhood stabilization or improvement plan in which highly educated leaders, with a degree or experience in the fields of engineer, construction, business, law, city and regional planning, etc, articulates positive attributes of ASBO. For these members, they were anointed and given the awesome task and responsibility of retrofitting research data that was accumulated and collected from other locations and site areas in order to ensure the black and low income citizens of Atlanta that the ASBO components are in fact, compatible with land use development plans and practices currently being employed in black and low income communities throughout the Southeastern United States.
For many of these city residents ,they failed to get the telephone call, letter or invitation from SBT to meet with them in order to elicit their insight or vision statement perspective about outsiders coming into their community to design a master plan to improve the physical contour of land use, water and the housing and community development infrastructure in their community. An since they did not get the message, telephone call or the invitation to serve, it gave rise to the participation of “highly educated people with degrees from institutions of higher learning” to gleam from the calling the opportunity to begin the mundane task of serving on the Sustainable Atlanta’s Sustainable Building Taskforce (SBT) in order to facilitate the creation of ASBO” to address the social, economic, and environmental impacts of Commercials and High Rise Residential Buildings on the City of Atlanta”. It is this concern by black community residents that their lack of participation on this business led august structure has, at best, given rise to a barrage of theoretical assumptions, assertions and points of view that are being employed as testimony to authenticate their prognosis that because, hypothetically, land is somehow being held selfishly-by those that would like to see their kids obtain full credit and access to their business, home, church, retail or grocery store, school or recreational facility in the Black and low income communities, upon their death, and because these individuals have ruthless begun to critique this special connection between ASBO and the business community, members of SBT see no way out except to use the full power of the City of Atlanta to act as an agent of development and remove, resettle, relocate or dispose of them, in their pursuit of making, ”Atlanta a best-in-class city”.
Most importantly, attention seems to have been amiss when members of the black community were so concerned about the language employed in ASBO and gave little difference to the main orchestral role to be performed by “Lynnette Young (former chief operating officer of the city of Atlanta)” in taking the lead in articulating a theory of development in which the world view of members that are serving on the SBT would be the normative and empirical guide upon which all articulate views would dominate at the expense and detriment of the sick, poor, Aged, Black, White, women, children and homeless. Consubstantively, in order to bring into existence many of the assumptions that are being articulated by members of SBT, the City of Atlanta would have to hermetically and heuristically, choose a path of least resistance. Thus, we assert, that by employing the use of a top model down approach, these members would be able to hide behind ”education, training and experience” as a cursory for indicating to members of the Atlanta City Council that should put blinders on and upon reviewing the analysis and findings of SBT, they would march in concert and support the notion, per se, that there are only four (4) main areas (things)” that they should “ONLY”consider as being relevant and important to bring into being “Atlanta’s quest to be a world-class sustainable city. Many of these tasks, areas (things) ”are roughly equivalent and provide a great deal of flexibility to the building industry while ensuring a wide range of environmental responsible practices”(Proposed Atlanta Sustainable Building Ordinance Fact Sheet, Sustainable Atlanta, 2007). The four main focus areas are:
1.Commercial & High-Rise (>3 stories) Residential Buildings; 2.Low-Rise Residential Buildings & Single Family Homes; 3.Stormwater Management; and 4.Zoning (City of Atlanta, Georgia, Sustainable Building Ord.2009)
Problems with the theoretical assumptions and framework employed in ASBO
I believe that despite the congregation of educated persons serving on SBT and the vision statement being employed and articulated by them to ensure that “Atlanta’s quest to be a world-class sustainable city” is obtainable, ASBO will fail in its demur, primary because of the following reasons, namely:
1.An Environmental literacy, education, ecosystem and justice framework does not guide ASBO
2.The workgroup looked at other areas of research and tried to retrofit their findings into the Atlanta scheme.
3.The workgroup, composed of architects, engineers, developers, lawyers, city planners and other experts, will have a disproportionate voice on the function and operation of the proposed ASBO.
4.The building and construction industry will benefit from the ASBO
5.The Sustainable Building Taskforce has hosted several large meetings to engage citizens, instead of hosting a meeting along with them to arrive at a policy construct.
6.Once ASBO and SWBT took upon itself to reflect the characteristics of Lynnette Young (former chief operating officer of the city of Atlanta), the ASBO began to reflect many of the ideas espoused by David Orr, Gary Synder and Elie Wiesel in the essay, The Problem of Education, namely:
Environmental mismanagement is too often the work of the highly educated people with B.A.’s, B.S.’s, LL.B’s, M.B.A. and Ph.D.’s who, in the poet Gary Snyder’s words, often “make unimaginably large sums of money, people impeccably groomed, excellently educated at the best universities—male and female alike—eating fine foods and reading classy literature, while orchestrating the investment and legislation that ruin the world (Snyder, 1990). When the actions of educated people ”ruin the world”, for whatever cause, it is time to ask what went wrong in their education. One answer, suggested by Elie Wiesel, is that modern education has too often emphasized theories, not values, abstraction rather than lived reality, answers instead of questions, and know-how rather than know-why (Wiesel, 1990)
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