Today, Hartford smells rotten and wasteful.
Drought advisory be damned, the new sportsball field will be watered!
You might be asking: did we need another sportsball field in Hartford? No, no we did not. Did we need the baseball field in Pope Park renovated a couple years ago? Didn’t need that either.
Unless you’re a career politician who loves to stamp your name all over things.
The state “rep” for this district actually has her name attached to the youth baseball league, which plays in this park, and get ready for the next layer of malarkey: instead of going to Burns School or United Way, voters are now being directed to the Pope Park Rec Center.
That move would make sense, were it not tainted by years of the politician making sure she was associated with it.
Could this rep have spent any of the several decades in office directing funds toward infill housing? There are numerous vacant lots and buildings, sprawling surface parking lots.
The need is great. Just look at the pavilion next to the brand new playing field in Pope Park: there are always people using it as overnight shelter. Tents and shacks are also set up in less visible sections of Pope Park. People deserve stable housing at least as much as a state rep deserves another vanity project.
And if anything at all should be done in Pope Park, it’s this: give attention to the soccer field — the area that actually receives frequent use. Stop allowing people to drive through the park and onto the grass. Clean the garbage from the park. Maybe there could be a [State Rep.’s Name Redacted] Needle And Construction Debris Removal Project.
Richard
This is what I so dislike. Here I am saving water from doing the dishes, using a non-toxic biodegradable soap, saving any running water while I wait for it to get hot and catching rainwater and these fools water a sports ball field. Someone needs to be yanked and yanked good. If we really want to look at it this is a crime. I hope everyone sends a warning to these people (I loved putting it that way) and tell them to stop their criminal activity.
As far as Minnie is concerned, she is a big fraud always has been and always will be. But then so isn’t the system that she is a part of no matter how hard she squeaks the other way.
Kerri Provost
Emptying cat’s water bowl each day into the watering can and using it on houseplants. Reducing showers. Yes, Richard, same! Individuals making changes while the institutions just carry on with their wastefulness.
Donna Swarr
Do you agree that the little league field wasn’t needed? As a Park & Rec Commissioner, I disagree. I know that our athletic fields are overbooked. The city will now consider turf fields in the future to meet our community needs for youth recreation. I dearly appreciate the animosity the areas state rep has created by naming the league after herself, but from where I sit, the field was needed.
Kerri Provost
What we need is more meadow, especially around that pond. Adding sports fields is irresponsible use of financial and natural resources. And while you’re here, we should be rewilding the golf courses.
Richard
As a park and Rec Commissioner just get them to shut off the sprinklers in all the parks and other places. There is a drought going on just in case the folks who are running things don’t realize it.
Kerri Provost
Thank you, Richard!
And I should mention that a sports field is never “needed.” Wanted, maybe, but not needed. We need a healthy, sustainable environment in which to live.
Linda Pagani
Incredibly, almost immediately after the recent stage 2 statewide drought warning was issued, the MDC put out a notice which was published in my local paper advising its customers that we don’t need to conserve water, because the MDC has plenty in its reservoirs. This right after our town manager sent out a notice advising people to abide by the drought warning. If the MDC has so much water during a monthslong drought, maybe they should release some of it into the Farmington River and other small water bodies in their vast watershed holdings, so that other beings might live. To see fields being watered when the landscape all around us is brown and dead or dying is wrong on so many levels.
Kerri Provost
Right?! There have been all these warnings not to fish there. Disgusted by how much people cling to profits or outdated values, or both.