Monorail Redux

Vision or hallucination…visionary or madman…it’s a thin line.

Rasputin the “Mad Monk” was accused of both.

His unique take on life ended badly for him-poisoned, shot, beaten, drowned. Oh, yes, and he was blamed for the collapse of the Romanov Dynasty, too!

Proponents of the Storrs Downtown Project accuse the “naysayers” of lacking a “vision”.

Yet, residents did not generate this phantasm for Storrs presently on the table. Incubated by the University, for the University, and through the University, it was a “vision” petty bureaucrats promoted. They co-opted town administrators and hijacked the town council a decade or so ago. And now that the monkey has permanently taken up residence on their backs, they can’t shake him.

The vision, proponents so blithely advance, is nothing more than a company town, with company housing, and company stores. Hardly, a vision!

Now, you want a vision.

The Loedwick Visitor’s Center should have been placed at the gateway to the University (on the site of the old UConn police station) where cars could have parked and tourists shuttled off to campus and other destination points. Thus, eliminating traffic.

The and the should have been re-built on the site of the strip malls across from forming a cultural tourist nexus for this University town-ditto for a satellite dairy bar, its old apple store, retail florist products, etc. You get the drift! (Create a real reason for true market forces to build commercially.)

The too should have been moved to the site with new 21st century facilities.

And, the present town hall?

Returned to an elementary school with K thru 5 (not 4) adding another (yes) neighborhood school to the system, thus, returning the to a grade 6 to 8 facility and eliminating those ugly temporary/permanent trailers in the back of the school.

The should have been built with a view of the town pond (not as an annex of the town hall), thus creating a beautiful recreational complex in a natural surrounding with views of the pond, with skating and cross country skiing in the winter, and hiking and swimming in the summer.

The vision presently on the table was crafted piece meal by amateurs and cronies, and was a fresh exciting concept design in 1985. Sadly, this vision, which proponents embrace, will not advance Mansfield-Storrs or the University’s needs into the 21st century.

It is not an unwillingness to embrace a vision that has taxpayers saying “no to a bad idea”. It’s the vision itself that’s objectionable.

Real market forces, not dreams, build true downtowns!

The use of taxpayer dollars (whether federal, state or local) without taxpayer consent should not only raise eyebrows, but reasoned dissent. It is the American paradigm.