Coral Springs F-ART WALK – Road to Nowhere and a Waste of Money

This is what happens when businessmen are not elected to our City Commission.

I know there are a lot of art lovers in our city.

I am one of them.

I enjoy going to museums and of course enjoy a good shot of fine whisky once in a while.  I can only tell you that anyone that went along with putting in a massive 900 foot sidewalk covering up a canal and wasting public money for a walk that goes no where needs to be held to task.  Perhaps these people should be walking back and forth on that walk , or they should show me what their definition of Art is .   It would be great to visit their home and see what they collect, or see what exactly they had in mind when they decided on this project.  I mean, there was nothing better to spend public money on then a piece of concrete that goes from University drive to no where? It just stops!

I urge you to go see what a $347,000 dollars + $75,000 + $100,000 of tax payer money  wasted looks like.  Take a look at what the previous city commissioners …not Skip or Joy or Lou… But Dan Daley and Larry Vignola  voted on to spend your money including Dan Daley, Larry Vignola!  Let’s not forget those incredible CRA Community Redevelopment Agency.  This plan was the CRA Project or CRAP for short.

Let’s be fair.  Let’s look at the reasons why this fiasco was put into place.

First you have a bunch of people sitting on the CRA that basically  tell each other the great job they are doing.  Let’s spend some money. ….oh , I know, lets build a concrete sidewalk and …yea that’s it….hire a painter and put two triangles and a light bulb  having no relation to anything happening in this City.  What did this cost?  $100,000.

That’s right…$100,000. The artist actually won a contest and this was the best of the choice.  The city tells us that the $100,000 did not come out of our pockets, only those developers in our city who are putting money into a fund.  How about 86’ing the pyramid and putting the 100K in a fund that cleans up Riverside drive or provide programming for our seniors?  The $100,000 still came from developers who built it into the price of homes they sold to TAXPAYERS!   There is no free money.  Except if you are spending someone else.

What a sham.

The city had a plan in place to renovate sample road, creating walking environments, outdoor cafe’s parking areas and green spaces in the CRA.  A place where we could walk and enjoy both sides of a street instead of the Walk , one sided concrete jungle owned by one person.   Nope Not good enough. We need the F-Art walk to put the Humpty Dumpty Statue that used be on Sample Road gathering dust.  Go see it.  Right there in the middle of F-ArtWalk.  Maybe they will move the rusting horse on Sample Road there too…..you know…the one that is scaring our children.

How about moving the phallic symbol that welcomes visitors coming North on University Drive from Tamarac ( Looks like and Inkblot test) to the F-ArtWalk ? Where did these people get their Art knowledge? From comic books ?

How about cleaning up and Riverside drive from Sample to Wiles, our slum area and using funds that were intended to improve our city to really improve our city?

The people that were in office during this time, and the city manager will tell you that the money was from some other government agency and did not cost the taxpayers anything …no Donald Trump didn’t make Mexico pay for it….the money came from somewhere and when it comes from ANY government organization you and I paid for this through our federal taxes.   This was not FREE money as politicians and our city staff want you to believe. It was OUR money, and whether it came from our property taxes or sales taxes, or income taxes  I don’t care.  We should not be wasting OUR money on monuments for the stupid.  The fact that we got other taxpayers around the country to share this expense with us, still means we paid something for nothing.  Are we paying for other people’s F-Art Walks around the country?  A waste as well. 

How is this going to improve business in our city? The same people that pushed for the walk are the same people that put a Flee market on Sample road across from the city hall, which….you guessed now makes its home on the concrete known as F-Art-walk.   The Flea market competes with Coral Springs businesses that pay taxes to the city.  Been there lately?  Larry Vignola even had booth there selling Girl Scout Cookies.  Nothing against girl Scout, but is this the best we can do? It’a not his money. It is yours and mine.

Listen.  Don’t take my word for this.  Go and walk the thing yourself like I did.  Every step you take think about how the money could have been better spent or better yet, how the government should give us back money they have no idea on how to spend.

Wait until you see the Taj Mahla city hall that they are spending your money on next – Let’s at least make sure it has some Art on it – Perhaps we can resurrect Picaso from the dead. If the city can  find  public money to do it, then why not.