What to say about 2023? An armpit of a year? Better than 2024 is likely to be? It could have been worse?
Call it what you will. The year the state hostile takeover of GNV began in earnest. When we had to fight to save a few downtown trees. When the arts began to get squeezed out of downtown.
I could go on and on. But never mind.
Listen, here’s a collection of 12 FreeGNV.com blogs that, hopefully – albeit through my admittedly jaundiced view – will give you a taste of just what went on in the year we’re just wrapping up (in barbed wire) and getting ready to toss into The Swamp.
The good, the bad and the ugly.
Starting the year off on a positive note, here’s a blog about the newly opened Theater of Memory, aka Bill Hutchinson’s Cabinet of curiosities. In just one short year it has become a great GNV cultural and entertainment destination. Good job, Bill!
City Hall said a handful of pesky downtown trees were a problem and that they had to go. I begged to differ. We have a bigger downtown problem. (BTW: The trees were saved but the real problem remains).
Repeat after me: Chuckles, Keith and The Great DeSanitizer know what’s best for hapless, liberal GNV. And they’re either going to shove their Great Solution down our throats or up our…well, you know.
And don’t for a minute think that The Great GRU Heist is coming out of nowhere. It’s part of a much more devious plan to eventually privatize all of Florida’s municipal owned utilities.
And now for something completely different. Is 2023 the year pigs will fly in GNV?
In which the anti-Ron finally draws the line that separates him from the other Ron.
As rents go up and property value increase in downtown GNV will the arts be forced to find cheaper digs elsewhere? Spoiler alert: It’s already happening.
Listen, it’s time to stop waiting for some corporate white knight to gallop in and redevelop GNV’s crumbling Power District. We can do it ourselves, folks.
The Great DeSanitizer’s new UF Hit Man fired Charlie Lane with no explanation and for no apparent reason whatsoever. Where Charlie landed on his feet says a lot of Sasse’s poor judgement.
Yes, I’m human. And I‘ve finally got the proof!
In which a visit to the FDR Memorial reminds me of earlier, more innocent times. And what that says about us as a nation today.
GNV playwright Michael Presley Bobbitt abandoned Hogtown for the Island Life in Cedar Key. I don’t want to say that he’s turned into a buccaneer exactly. Let’s just say his neck has definitely gotten, um, redder.
FreeGNV 