Once again, Toledo has won an award for flowers planted in the city, as pointed out in this Toledo Blade article. America in Bloom, a non-profit organization (much like Toledo these days) has presented the city with a "heritage preservation" award for cities over 100,000 in population. Of course the fact that Toledo was the only city in this category to enter the contest might have something to do with the win.
At a time when the city looks to be up to 7 million dollars in the red for the current fiscal budget, isn't it nice to know that we have the money to plant flowers, care for them, and of course rip them out when they die in the now cooling temperatures. At a time when jobs and residents are leaving the city at an alarming and almost unprecedented rate, isn't it nice to know that we have the time to focus on finding and entering such pointless contests.
I would like to call this kind of behavior putting "lipstick on a pig", but that phrase has become more than a little tired these days. I will instead, suggest that the title of Mayor be removed from the office that Carlton S. Finkbeiner now holds in Toledo, and suggest instead that he be called, "Fertilizer Spreader In Chief", in homage to his success in spreading taxpayer dollars and natural fertilizer with equal alacrity in order to make pretty flowers grow.
2 comments:
Tim, great blog. Here's a question for somebody who's interested in doing some digging - Was there a 'fee' involved for putting our name in the ring for this award? I do believe in the past our illustrious Mayoron has entered contests like this that had entry fees in the lower 4 figure range, where no other cities in our category had taken the bait.
I picture a couple old ladies on the 'bloom' committee just snickering away as they put Toledo's $1000+ entry fee in their bank account, then stopping by the local trophy store to pick up the cheap assed plaque they had printed up...
Billy
Thank you for the kind words.
I did some checking at the America in Bloom website, and there is nothing that I can find on a registration fee at this point. They don't show the 2008 form, and the 2009 form won't be ready until February.
Past experience with such groups leads me to believe that a registration fee would be part of the process. In the great scheme of things such a fee would be a pittance however, in relation to the costs to plant and maintain these flowers using city workers.
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