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Nohero
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 10:50 am: |     |
This is what I posted when Harold injected one of his patented rants into a thread concerning an inquiry from someone moving to Maplewood. On further reflection, I decided not to clutter that discussion up any further, and put my response here.
(You all know the drill. Harold says, "Check out the area around the High School when the students are let out", someone else says "What are you getting at?", and away we go.)
Harold is trying to say the only thing he ever says. On the bright side, his viewpoint is not only in the minority in this community, he actually shows himself to be ill-informed about the things on which he continues to comment.
He has stated in the past that he chose to send his children to a private school, not in town (as is his right). However, for some reason he feels the need to justify this choice by carrying on about how awful he thinks Columbia, and the school system in general, is. In other words, he apparently cannot feel good about himself, unless he feels that he has made someone else feel miserable. One of his favorite themes is to rant about the fact that (and I know you will be shocked to hear this), there are a lot of, well , KIDS outside the high school when it lets out.
(Now, Harold may [or may not] have a problem with this particular group of students based upon their appearance, but let's not go there now.)
Anyway, Harold likes to keep saying that realtors will not bring people past the high school during the time school lets out. When he made that argument last March, this is what I said to him in reply:
Quote:Harold (since we've had this discussion online before) - With respect to homes located near ANY school, realtors will of course try not to show the house during school hours (you would see the cars parked there) or just after school (you would see all the people and the traffic).
However, your original point, on another thread, was that no matter WHERE in town the house for sale was located, realtors wouldn't take people past the high school. Even if true, I think that says more about what realtors think about the homebuyers, than it says about the school.
As for fighting, etc. among kids walking home from school - let's not all be surprised that some kids just out of school are out-of-control. In our town, there are a lot of kids walking home. In other towns, there are school buses, and all the pushing and shoving goes on in the schoolyard. I attended a private high school where there were a lot of kids with sports cars that their parents had bought for them, and the local police simply had to wait down the road a bit to catch some guy really speeding as school let out for the day. Would you call the reckless driving on the part of the students something which showed that the school was academically inferior?
Please don't tell me that fighting and speeding are different - they are different aspects of the same problem, which is, to put it simply, some kids act like jerks when they get out of school.
(Again, whether it is the actions of the students which concerns Harold, or some physical characteristic of the students, is not for me to say.)
Anyway, Harold goes on about this all the time, lots of folks refute him, and we go on about our day.
It's just that, when Harold takes it upon himself to inject his one-note rants into discussions of other topics, or feels the need to carry on with his insults when someone is making an inquiry about moving to town, it just gets tiresome.
Harold, as a resident, and a parent, I am personally insulted by your mean-spirited, spiteful, ill-informed and borderline hateful rantings. But I guess, if you have read this far, you've figured that out by now. |
Nan
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 1:27 pm: | |
Nohero,
Having participated in more than one verbal slugfight on this message board, I think your post suggests some interesting discussion topics. For example, when does a viewpoint go from being an opinion to be respected, even if different from one's own, to becoming an unfair personal attack on the whole town? How should we respond to these types of posts? Should we just ignore them hope they go away from lack of attention? Should we continue to argue the same points day after day? Or, should we place them in separate post, as you have here, for group discussion?
I'm no expert on meta-cognative dialogue, but I often pay as close attention to how people say things as to the contents of their words. For me, the key alarm sound goes off for excessive repetition (especially when I know what the person is saying has no real factual basis). When one or a few individuals are repetitively plastering unfair, unrelated or just untrue messages on a globally visible representation of our town it is difficult to sit back and just let it walk on by. I guess, with all my willingness to present MSO, warts and all I'm a little self-conscious of "what other people must think" after all.
My recent "discussion" under the education topic was partly influenced by the fact that I had met someone who wanted to move to MSO, but was worried about the schools because of what she had read on this board. It was not problems such as losing instrumental music programs that bothered her. I think she really believed that we have daily battles between the "whole-language" mommies versus the "phonics-mommies" on the playground everyday!
Every town has its characters, and some of these are bound to be cranky. I realize this, but then I also feel that maybe it is my civic duty to dilute some of their poison. |
Eliz
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 3:16 pm: | |
Of course you should dilute his poison! This board is read by a lot of people while they are considering whether to buy a house here (it was very helpful to us last year on many practical levels). If Harold's rants are met with silence then people who don't live here may assume they are true.
What I don't understand is why anyone would stay in a place where they were so obviously unhappy. |
Jem
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 3:16 pm: | |
Nan and Nohero,
I know exactly what you mean about arguing the same points over and over. The same negative stuff just keeps popping up, and always from the same people. Some days it seems hopeless to respond, and I wait for someone else to do it - and someone almost always does. That's part of why I love it here, that there is a critical mass of people who are committed to these two towns, the people in them, and, yes, the schools, imperfect as all these objects of our affection may be.
It just seems dead wrong to let the carping posts sit out there without a positive voice to balance them. I'm glad you're inclined to "dilute the poison," because that's my inclination, too. |
Melidere
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 6:58 pm: | |
amen, jem.
nan, what a great line about the 'whole language mommies vs. the phonics mommies'.
It's kinda the same thing with this 'east-west' divide. Most of the discussions i've been in about the reval had people affected both ways in the room. They were my friends before the reval, before redistricting, and they'll be my friends after.
Cuz they are really nice people. The facts will be the facts and we'll figure it out. |
Harold
| | Posted on Tuesday, January 30, 2001 - 8:47 pm: | |
"Dilute his poison".....he's saying bad things about our town.....prospective home buyers will stay away in droves!!!! |
Msuewillis
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 9:19 am: | |
I often imagine a family living in Anchorage, Alaska. In my imagination, they have just been transferred to the Essex County area and are reading message boards to get a flavor of the towns they are considering moving to. In my imagination, I picture these people only reading the complainers, and I promptly post some of my experiences, particularly my son's excellent experience at Columbia High School. He's a sophomore, runs track, plays cello in the orchestra, goes to Amnesty International meetings, is on an academic competition team, gave a superbowl party Sunday night for six noisy junk food junky friends-- he's having a broad and deep and excellent high school experience, and I want the world to know! |
Mlj
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 10:22 am: | |
I can't believe I am addressing Harold but here goes...Harold, I'm just curious, if you should ever put your home on the market...what will you say to potential buyers? |
Harold
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 11:03 am: | |
Mlj, well I won't tell them about the "GATES" at our Newark borders, the carjacking and attempted rapes at 'Hood high, the car theft problem, the increasing taxes each year, the steering by the realtors, the crime, ( the C.C.R. that you hate),
etc.,etc.,...and I certainly WON'T tell them about MILLBURN! (they might choose to look there and I'll lose a sale)! |
Nakaille
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 11:23 am: | |
Curiosity question, Harold: What does keep you in Maplewood? And do you really not know that those things happen in all towns?
Even my beloved Madison where I grew up has had murders, rapes, etc. We're aware of Maplewood's problems because we live in Maplewood. Not because it happens any more frequently here than anywhere else. BTW, I live in the neighborhood adjoining the "gates". I almost bought a house there but one reason I didn't was that the gates seemed like a pain to work around all the time. And the neighborhood, like mine, is racially quite mixed. It's part of where we do our walks when we need exercise and fresh air, because there is less traffic. Nothing all that special in any direction, as far as I'm concerned.
Millburn is not a bad town. But it's not where I'd want to raise my child, even if I had big bucks.
Bacata |
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 11:59 am: | |
I've never heard about or seen the gates. What's up with that? |
Nakaille
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 12:16 pm: | |
Njjoseph: the gates are on the Newark/Irvington corner of Maplewood in the neighborhood bordered by Irvington Ave, Boyden Ave, and Parker. (Irvington Ave rounds a corner so it covers two sides of a quadrangle.) There used to be a lot of high-speed traffic through that neighborhood (some of which has simply transferred to my street, grrr!) mostly in avoidance of the lights on Irvington Ave and Parker. (Some posters here have attested to their own impatience with the lights.) There has also been speculation that it cut down crime in the immediate neighborhood by making it harder to make a fast getaway. There are now gates at both ends of Hillcrest and I think maybe one other street. The whole project caused a big flap because the media implied it was whites trying to keep minorities out. In fact, the neighborhood at the time was already quite diverse racially. And, as I understand it, the neighborhood made the request of the town for some sort of intervention around traffic problems that were safety issues for kids in the area.
Kap, can you shed some light on the specifics and with the rationale and effect of the gates? I think you may know this situation better than I do.
Bacata |
Njjoseph
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 12:30 pm: | |
Hmmmm.....I never noticed them, and I shop at the Foodtown and Walgreens regularly. I'll have to drive up and down the street until I see them.
Did they have any other effect other than changing traffic patterns? |
Kap
| | Posted on Wednesday, January 31, 2001 - 8:15 pm: | |
There are 5 gates in the Hillcrest neighborhood located at the corners of Hillcrest and Irvington Ave, Cherry Place and Parker Ave, Fernwood and Hillcrest, Hillcrest and Boyden Ave and Elsman Terrace and Irvington Ave. (Contrary to popular belief only one of the gates,the Elsman gate, actually faces any neighboring town, and represents approximately 15ft out of ~3/4 mile of shared border.) The gates were petitioned to the township by the Neighborhood Association to address the problem of cars using the residential neighborhood streets as a throughway to avoid lights at the corners of Parker and Irvington, Parker and Boyden, Boyden and Irvington and the Irvington bend (Hard to describe if you're not familiar with it.) It is these four lights that define the Hillcrest neighborhood. Before the gates, it was common to have traffic (including 18 wheelers) going down the street at speeds approaching 40mph. The Hillcrest Neighborhhod Assn. was formed to specifically address this issue in the winter of 1993. By the spring of 1994 the temporary gates were constructed and that fall the curb to curb, brick and steel, decorative gates were constructed.
The impact on traffic and the improvement in quality of life in the neighborhood was immediately felt the day the temp gates were put in and remains so today. Essentially, the only traffic we have now is residents and people with destinations in the area; just as one would hope for on residential streets.
As for any other results of the installation of the gates, I feel that they fostered a greater sense of community in the neighborhood. And while the gates were NOT constructed as a crime deterent (regardless of how often or how loudly some may proclaim it) I would imagine that they may be of some use to the police on those occasions when they are trying to anticipate an escape route for a reported crime in the town. (BTW, the crime rates in this part of town are no different than those in other areas of town; either now or before construction of the gates. Check with the MPD if you doubt me.)
kap |
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