Friday, April 25, 2008

Lancaster East Business Association (LEBA)




LEBA's purpose is to promote revitalization and gentrification of the East Lancaster Business Corridor. We are poor and don't have big money backing us or our area of the City so we really need concerned Fortworthians to please attend this important meeting Tuesday, April 29th at 2pm and voice your vision to the City of Ft. Worth planning department who is suppose to be in attendance to listen. Our Association's boundaries are from I35 (really Riverside due to West of 287 being Near Eastside Urban Village) to Beach Street only.

Meeting will be held in the small chapel of the Salvation Army 1855 E. Lancaster just east of Riverside Dr.

All interested people are welcome. Please come share your thoughts & ideas with the City and help us get something going over here just east of the beautiful and energetic downtown Ft. Worth.

A few of my ideas/thoughts are:

1. Beautify Sycamore Creek Bridge and the creek bed to include bike trails that connect to the Trinity Trails.

2. Get rid of the nasty motel/hotels and put in mixed use zoning in those areas.

3. Create bike riding lanes from downtown to at least, Sycamore Creek.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am disappointed that I only now found this website (via your profile link on West and Clear) or I would have gladly attended. I still live in FW, but am unfortunately no longer an Eastsider though I was for most of my life. My father still lives on the East side and it will always be home to me which is why I write now. I feel so very strong for re-vitalizing these historic areas of the Eastside - ESPECIALLY moving out those wretched Motels once and for all. These crime-infested hangouts mainly house hardcore drug addicts, prostitutes, criminals and have provided a safe haven for burglars to store a lot of stolen goods. These places were very useful in the days of the state highways as the only highways, but now have outlived their usefulness and are just a constant reminder that this city government does not place a high-priority on revitalizing anything but downtown and does not really want to take on crime in the long term.

Anonymous said...

VinnyV - Thanks for your comments. There have been some wonderful improvements around the intersection of Riverside & E. Lancaster. Thanks to the help of the Mayor and Captain Sudan. It took lots of personal time and hard work on the part of many of us citizens and business owners, but it is much better. Also we have challenged the corner beer stores in court and managed to get some beer licenses revoked. Thanks to the help of Kathleen Hicks and the Community Prosecutors and others. I agree with you wholeheartedly that the nasty motels and such must go! However, then you come up against the political stuff about "it's not illegal to be homeless" spin that some are using. I remember when I first complained about the criminals on E. Lancaster, Kathleen Hick's reply was "well we are getting harrasement complaints down at City Hall." BS! I don't believe that. What I believe is that she didn't want to touch this area and being the many on the street happen to be "black," she didn't want to look like she was going against "her people." I kept pressing, and since then, there has been much progress made! I'm glad your heart will always be in East Ft. Worth because we will always need support over here. Thanks so much for your comments.