Healing Charlottesville
Ideas to save Jefferson and Charlottesville.... Ideas whose Power is Quaking the Common Ground on which We Stand ...Two parts to save Jefferson School. JEFFERSON the building and SCHOOL a place of learning. Take away either part and Jefferson School does not exist. The only reason Jefferson School has not already been fixed up is because city council does not want to. With student enrollment declining, one school has got to go. The least important school for city council is Jefferson. ... Root Canal or Extraction? ... Urban Renewal is like an abscessed tooth. Its location is a small part of the body like a neighborhood is a small part of a city. Revenue Sharing is like a pain medication. Take one tax transfer a year and you will feel better. But you will not get better. Without surgery, the pain killer will cease to be effective. The infection will spread. And eventually you will die. The health of Charlottesville began to fail with Urban Renewal. Urban Renewal has not torn apart the city of Charlottesville. It has brought us together as allies against a common enemy. The painful lesson of history we are now learning is this: If government can deny one person a right, it will deny that right to everyone. Political Weather Forecast Storm clouds are gathering on the horizon. A strong wind is blowing through the city. The only ones who don't know about the impending storm are those who are sheltered by status quo. Yesterday (Jan. 26, 2002) I stopped by the Jefferson-Madison Regional library downtown. I asked to speak to the chief librarian on duty. I said I wanted to submit the most recent issue of The Witness Report to the library and asked that they safeguard it and make it available if a patron asks to see it. The librarian explained that they don't accept just anything. I asked if they were a library and said, just read it and then throw it away. The librarian said she would pass it on to the department head. If I were a librarian and anyone brought me a piece of writing and asked me to safeguard it, you can best believe I would take notice and feel the awesome responsibility of a librarian. You may want to print this email and safeguard it for your children to read long after Jefferson is gone. Our institutions cannot be relied upon. This week I tried to increase my email account because of the rising swell of correspondence. I sent Hotmail an email asking how to pay for increased service through postal mail, Western Union, etc. Hotmail responded that they accept credit cards only. So I sent a second email of appeal. I offered to mail twice the amount for the service and for the Hotmail representative to keep the remainder if he would use his credit card to pay my account. I said I was trying to save a historic black school in the home town of Thomas Jefferson and that it was an opportunity for Hotmail to get exposure and to participate in history, and an opportunity for the representative to display a can-do customer service attitude and get promoted. I said I don't have internet at home and must use a public computer for email. Hotmail responded. They understand how important my email account is to me but they accept credit card payment only. To exclude even a few customers is the road to bankruptcy. To exclude the cash economy of poor people trying to join the mainstream hurts corporate profits. Poor people are not excluded by choice. The exclusion is imposed. Bill Gates must be wondering why his profit margin is not better. Like city council, he probably sees no connection between policies and problems. So my email address will change soon. If you have Hotmail, start looking for a new email provider.
Blair Hawkins Circulated last few days of January.
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