Limabeancounter - 03 January 2008 11:59 PM

Lumina,

In all fairness to Steve, I think he was saying that he would be willing to give money to a cause if it were to go toward mental health care for someone who needed it.

I was just riffing on something you wrote, actually. That said, I’d rather give someone money for something they actually need to make their lives better, rather than, say, a 40 of Schlitz. I could just as easily have written “M’ashyoo a question ... Can a fella get a nickel for some affordable housing?”

And Lumina, like pretty much everyone else on the planet, I’ve had a number of loved ones impacted by mental illness. It’s a non-issue here. We’re talking about the Ranger station.

If you want to talk about the serious side of mental illness, start a thread in the Health section of the forums. I’ll personally kill the posts of anyone trying to derail the thread from serious discussion.

There’s a pretty good discussion going on in the MountainX comments in response to the article by Brian Postelle. At least it’s a lot more on topic and less silly than this thread has been. And I agree with some comments over there, the design of the building could have been much better. Do we need a ranger? I’d say yes, but getting the right person for the job may be problematical.

I just wonder what this Ranger could do that a standard beat cop couldn’t do. Enforce laws in the park? Be nice to tourists and people walking through the city?

I noticed someone said on the main page that there needs to be a bathroom somewhere near the park for people. While this is true, I’ve worked downtown for a while in restaurants and can tell you the trouble with keeping a bathroom open to the public. People destroy it. They graffiti it up, and they often use these bathrooms for drugs/prostitution.  I recall working at a coffee shop across from the downtown library and seeing librarians routinely coming in on their lunch breaks completely exhausted and at their wits end from having to deal with people all day. I remember one day a librarian coming in and actually starting to cry when I asked her how her day is going.

I’m not wanting to turn this into a homeless/panhandler debate, but a large percentage of the people that occupy Pritchard Park are people who have no place to go, and a percentage of those people for one reason or another are usually high or drunk. A lot of those people are directly responsible for some of the unsavory activity that you see downtown during the day. Most of them are the reasons that people don’t sit and have lunch in the park.

But back on topic, the park doesn’t need a “Ranger”. If the city feels like they need a constant presence in the park, then take a beat cop and put him there. The hiring of a Ranger is a waste of taxpayer dollars when plenty of officers could do the same job at no additional cost.

I’m not sure I understand the ranger idea either.  I thought maybe the ranger booth was to keep from getting cold.  I’m not really being facetious.  Shouldn’t he be outside the booth?  A regular beat cop wouldn’t have a little shelter to hang out in as far as I know.  This isn’t a large park to begin with so I’m not sure I “get it” just yet.

What I think is that it’s a feel good measure by the police. Local businesses were complaining about the park, and this way the police are doing something without actually doing anything.

Jason Bugg - 04 January 2008 04:23 PM

I just wonder what this Ranger could do that a standard beat cop couldn’t do. Enforce laws in the park? Be nice to tourists and people walking through the city?

That’s a good point. I’m not sure what authority these city park rangers have anyway. Can they arrest people? Do they carry guns or other weapons? Or will this just be some kind of good will ambassador? Whoever this person is may turn out to be a big joke among the Park denizens just like the first part of this thread implied. An actual police presence might make more sense.

I don’t want to pass judgment yet, but this has “mall security” written all over it.

That’s exactly what I was saying to my wife. This “ranger” seems like a glorified rent-a-cop or meter maid.

I think a ranger for Pritchard Park is a grand idea! He (or she) can keep track of the bear and moose population, help find lost hikers, fight forest fires, point out the camping areas, close Patton Avenue for the winter months, do all the things park rangers do. Yes, grand idea!

And Ralph, don’t forget how s/he can do as a ranger especially if they work for the Forest Disservice, they can use taxpayer subsidies to earmark of millions of acres of federal public lands for logging!

lumina - 03 January 2008 11:59 PM

there are many ways to live one’s convictions ... if one has the courage, that is ...

(and thank you, limabeancounter, for your thoughtful acknowledgement ... )

That’s kinda like a modified “NIMBY Buddy!”

They should get Walker, Texas Ranger.

Manny Fernandez - 05 January 2008 02:52 AM

They should get Walker, Texas Ranger.

That’s a different kind of ranger, Manny ... I was thinking of one more along the lines of the rangers in “Yoga Bear”—a Jellystone Ranger!

travelah - 05 January 2008 02:05 AM

lumina - 03 January 2008 11:59 PM

there are many ways to live one’s convictions ... if one has the courage, that is ...

(and thank you, limabeancounter, for your thoughtful acknowledgement ... )

That’s kinda like a modified “NIMBY Buddy!”

that may be what it SOUNDS like to the cynical (what color is the sky in your world?), but that’s not what it is.

i have taken the homeless into my home before, back before i had a minor child to protect at home, and in my younger and more idealistic days when i thought that it would help the persons’ situations. it didn’t do much to help without other forms of professional support and assistance. and while the residents of my home were not physically dangerous, the persons they attracted to my home scared me.

nowadays, in addition to not putting my family at risk (because homeless folk do most often suffer untreated mental illness and therefore can have very unpredictable behavior), i have learned that PREVENTION is much more effective approach than treating the symptoms of the problem. education is most key, but providing financial and emotional resources during the period of crisis/transition are also key.

my personal approach to this issue is to make regular and consistent donations of time, clothing, and money to those causes and organizations which are professionally and fundamentally best equipped to deal with the problem effectively. i rerouted my professional career from the private sector into public service (a decade ago) and dedicated my efforts toward developing programs that would help a variety of community development issues, including homelessness. i volunteer my time to causes that encourage and support independence and advocate for the recognition of mental health treatment both in private insurance contexts and in public health contexts. all of my household donations are not sold in yard sales, but donated to a local organization that helps persons dislocated and in crisis. i make regular monthly monetary donations to an organization that addresses poverty, hunger and homelessness, and because the issue of homelessness is very complex and multi-faceted, i push myself to become better educated on its causes and most effective treatments. (a lot of people don’t realize that the reason homelessness became so prevalent in the 1970s and beyond is because of the massive deinstutionalization of our mental health system, whereby folks who had been receiving long-term residential treatment for mental illness were simply discharged and largely left to fend for themselves on the street. the private insurance industry’s weak response to mental health along with widescale privatization of public mental health care have contributed to the problem and push many families from productive, housed lives onto the streets for the lack of affordable mental health care options. the prison industry has picked up some of that slack for those who are ill enough to become violent—although many leaving prison simply return to the streets until they offend again—which leaves us in urban centers to be confronted with the discomfort and guilt of having to walk past the less aggressive (“mashyoo?”) every day from our warm cars to our warm offices and back to our warm cars as they try to make eye contact with us (gawd forbid they actually touch us to tug our sleeve) to ask for a few dollars to meet their most pressing needs) ...

and though giving money to those living on the street won’t solve their problems, won’t make it go away, i give money to everyone who asks (and some who don’t) in the hopes that it makes their waiting for acknowledgement and help a little easier to bear and perhaps keeps them from taking more desperate (violent?) measures to meet their needs.

while these actions might not cure the problem, it is my hope that they contribute to the amelioration of it. i’m not here to toot my own horn at all, but since you’ve challenged me to prove my commitment, here it is.

Lumina, for someone with your experience and perspective, and particularly as it may relate to the situation that exists in Pritchard Park, how do you feel about the idea of putting some kind of “ranger” or other authority presence there?