Signs of Progress at Controversial Glenlake Mudpit
February 5, 2010 | 10:18 am
From the Decatur Metro “This Story is Completely Fictional” desk…
As Decatur continues to trudge through the wet, winter months, steady progress continues on one of the city’s most controversial bond projects in recent memory: the Great Glenlake Mudpit.
It’s a story of love, hate and political savvy. A giant pit of mud that symbolizes an underlying turmoil inside five, precious square miles.
It all started with what is now being termed a “simple mistake.” In an effort to be more inclusive than humanly possible during a city-wide vote on how to spend bond-project money, city staff, commissioners and Glenlake Park advocates agreed that in order to include literally EVERYONE in the city’s decision-making process, children from 2-18 years-old would also get a say.
When asked about left out 0-2 year-olds, Glenlake improvements advocate Frank McGuilt-Trip chuckled knowingly and explained “Well, while we really DID want to include every city resident in this decision, when it came to the two-and-unders we felt that their general lack of understanding of most anything might impede their decision-making on the Glenlake project.”
However, it was this effort of “intense inclusiveness” that ultimately proved to be the Achilles heel of park improvement advocates. In a stroke of what is being called “political genius” by both sides, fiscal conservatives, who usually find themselves in the minority inside this progressive city, spread the idea amongst the kid voting-faction of turning the park, which once sported tennis courts, playgrounds and a dog park, into a giant mudpit.
Paul Itsmymon-Eydammit explains.
“Well, it was actually pretty simple. We didn’t want to spend anymore of our hard-earned money on silly things like maintaining parks. And kids love mud. Adults give them swings and monkey-bars to play on, but really when it all comes down to it, they’d rather just get themselves nice and filthy. So we started floating the idea around the elementary schools of a giant mudpit at Glenlake and the idea caught on like wildfire.”
In November of last year, city conservatives managed to add a “Mudpit or Bust” option to an online survey about the park put out by the city. When all the votes were tallied a couple days later, nearly 70% of voters ended up picking the mudpit option. With little choice but to listen to the will of the people, city commissioners approved the mudpit option. Work is now well underway to transform this greenspace into a brownspace.
Asked what he thought about the coming pit, 5 year-old Muddy Walters replied “My daddy loves it because he says it saved us money, but I love it because of the worms.”
My toddler was very angry to be excluded from the decision-making process, but ultimately has been satisfied with the outcome.
Your post should have read, “In a stroke of what is being called “political genius” by both sides, I will write only about one side.”
What? Which made-up side did I not include?
Yes, I get the “made-up” nature of the article. My comment was just light-hearted commentary as to you sacastically going after the conservative side without equal time for the liberal side.
I getcha. But I thought I did a pretty good job at tweaking both.
“More inclusive than humanly possible”? Fred McGuilt-Trip?
Agreed
No offense taken by this right-leaner. I was too busy laughing and marveling at your wit and creativity to be bothered in the least.
Eric, thank you for making me look like a tight-ass!
No offense here either, just having fun with DM. 
Tight ass? Ooh, sounds painful.
i wish you had not put a fiction label on this so we could track who falls for it!
I still feel bad for the guy who defended the fictional midnight budget release party, with its rioting citizens dressed up as city employees.
I found that endearing.
Hey, take it easy on me. I was a fairly new reader/writer to the blog, and hadn’t quite got the hang of DM’s humor.
Looking back on it, I’m still a bit red in the face, but since I have no problem laughing at myself, it’s pretty darned funny.
That was you? Parker is right. That was pretty endearing!
Guilty as charged. I almost decided to stop contributing to the blog, then I realized just how funny it was that I fell for it, and figured my ego could handle it.
He he he he…
Our dogs first visited the park as guests, but were so adept at furthering the mud creation that they were hired as consultants.
Time to give up on the park, dig out the mud and create a lake, use the dirt to fill in the Midway Woods denuded cliff-win, win.
Or, dig up all the mud, dump it in Suburban Plaza, and annex the pile.
Then Decatur citizens would have a perfect location to practice their King-of-the-hill skills.
It all equals out. Had my 2-year old actually had a vote, she would have voted for a large mud pit anyway.
A reader just provided a much better Glenlake mud photo! (see above!) Huge props to the anonymous photog!
My 4-year old didn’t quite get it. He kept asking me, Daddy what button do I push for McCain?
two year olds should have been allowed to vote as they will be taxpayers by the time the mudpit opens again.
Kinda like this, but the opposite:
http://tinyurl.com/d4bqzh
Tires Plus at DeKalb Industrial & N. Decatur is pretty good. Although I think I’ve heard the most “exceptional customer service” stories from the aforementioned Kaufman Tire.