A K-9 stadium - in your lifetime?

I'm still laughing over Monday's article in the Northwest Herald about the K-9 baseball field. That one was worthy of framing.

Why?

Merryman site manager Rich Zirk was quoted as saying, "They're (the K-9 team dreamer-uppers) one wealthy baseball fan away from being open." Man! I am really stretching to avoid a candid response to that one, and it wouldn't be polite!"

I'll give the writer of the article a break; she hasn't been on the Woodstock beat very long. She wrote, "the idea was to have the ball field open by this year." Nahhh, Chelsea... please go back and read the pitch to the City Council. That pitch should have been a called strike or hit foul down the sidelines. Instead, it resulted in a home-run for EquityOne Sports Development and Merryman.

The pressure was put on the City Council and Mayor to rush through an approval. There was a land deal by Merryman that "had" to be made - and made fast. But definitely not for the City's benefit. So the Council rushed it through with what was probably a record-breaking number of Conditions - fifty (50) of them. Whoever heard of rushing through a development with 50 Conditions??? I didn't like it then, and I don't like it now.

When was that? Fall of 2009? Wasn't opening day to be in June 2010? Well, that one came and went. And so did 2011. And so will 2012.

The developers, like those trying to push through a project in Lakewood, are wanting to play with OPM. You know that team; right? OPM - the Other People's Money team. Not their own money; somebody else's money.

Oh, and that "one wealthy baseball fan"? There's a reason he's wealthy, and why he'll stay that way. He avoids letting others get rich at his expense!

But let me thank the Northwest Herald for showing readers what Merryman has really done to the land behind the berm they built to keep it out of view. I'm reminded of clear-cutting projects. They leave a row of trees along the highway, so that passersby cannot see the devastation just beyond.