Posted inUncategorized

City Block Grant Funding Cuts Hit Home For YMCA CDC-Riverwest

by Sonya Jongsma Knauss

More than $1 million in cuts to community organizing by the City is taking its toll in many neighborhoods, and Riverwest is no exception. Community organizing and neighborhood planning activities will take a hit when the YMCA CommunityDevelopment Corporation at 604 E. Center St. closes its doors on Dec. 31, 2002. The office, which the YMCA opened a little over a year ago and which represents a $37,000 buildout investment on the part of the Y, has been used for many neighborhood gatherings.

“There was a certain level of trust we put in the Y when we originally decided to ask them to administer the grant. We felt they would commit to the neighborhood and bring resources into it. . . I expected the Y to do more work to find funding. To me it’s an institutional question: is the Y devoted to the CDC model or not?” -Alderman D’Amato

Posted inFurther Down Stream

December 2002

Latina poets – Drum and Civic Leadership Corps – No more Historic Preservation Officer – Riverwest Artist Association Santa-windo-rama – Bremen St. Block Club – Riverwest Best of – Reservoir Park – Co-Op and Credit Union ATMs, food stamps

Posted inBusiness Briefs

December 2002

River Horse opens – Nessun Dorma opens – Packer’s Pizza opens – Riverwest Resale opens – Lena’s Grocery to open – Funky Art World Closes – Other Gallery News

Posted inColumns

Stewardship Means Caring for the Natural Part of Our Community

“The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. This sounds simple: do we not already sing our love for and obligation to the land of the free and the home of the brave? Yes, but just what and whom do we love? Certainly not the soil, which we are sending helter-skelter downriver. Certainly not the waters, which we assume have no function except to turn turbines, float barges, and carry off sewage. Certainly not the plants, of which we exterminate whole communities without batting an eye. Certainly not the animals, of which we have already extirpated many of the largest and most beautiful species. A land ethic of course cannot prevent the alteration, management, and use of these ‘resources’, but it does affirm their right to continued existence in a natural state.” — Aldo Leopold, Sand Co. Almanac 1949