Ever since the Minden Gateway Center declared bankruptcy, the land has been sitting there growing weeds. The owner says he’s making progress restructuring his debts, and hopes to resume construction soon. But until then, it’s nothing but an ugly lot surrounded by chain link.
So that leaves the community with an eyesore at one of its major intersections. And the town board figures that someone needs to clean it up, and if the owner of the land won’t do it, it might as well be the town. The plan is to use prison crews and jail inmates to rip out the weeds and generally clean the place up. As you can see from the picture above, it dearly needs a good weeding; some of those plants are getting to be the size of a car.
Once the town takes over responsibility of keeping the place clean, they’re committing to coming back every year and cleaning it up over and over, until construction starts up again. Which could happen next spring, or could be years and years in the future.
Let me start by saying that this is a great way to help the community and have the inmates contribute to society. I applaud the city for using logic and reasoning to come up with a solution that will result in a remedy that is positive for everyone. All to often we spend needlessly because the funds are taxpayers and seem to end up getting wasted in many instances. I applaud the city for working to find a solution that would cost the city and the citizens the least amount possible.
Terry Suominen