Atta Way Doug!

I really have to stop criticizing Mayor L. Douglas Wilder. Despite his antagonizing most of the city by evicting the school administration from City Hall, it is clear that Doug knows what it takes to placate the voters. What it takes is for the city to spend four or five millions dollars to build a 73 slip marina on the James River at the site of the Intermediate Terminal. How can any one continue to criticize Mayor Doug when he comes up with plans that are so beneficial to the taxpayers of Richmond? Now you might say that you don’t have a boat and can’t imagine why your tax dollars should be used for a marina. Obviously, you are short sighted.

There are many ways that the mayor’s proposed marina will help the City of Richmond:

1- Those of you who watched the HBO series “The Wire” are fully aware how spending millions of dollars for waterfront development will turn around our public schools and cut our crime rate, just as it did in Baltimore;

2- Doug can lure the school administration out of City Hall by offering them floating headquarters;

3- The mega-yachts that will dock at Richmond will provide lucrative employment for our high school dropouts;

4- Our children can go on school field trips to the marina to see the big sail and power boats that they will never be able to afford;

5- Richmond Public Schools can provide accessible classrooms for our handicapped children since the mayor refuses to spend a cent to make school buildings accessible; and

6- When shots are fired in your neighborhood, you can invite all your neighbors to spend the night safely on your family yacht.

If none of these reasons convince you, then I recommend that you borrow fifty or one hundred thousand dollars to buy a boat. You then can be one of the 73 Richmonders who will directly benefit from the marina.