Four-Lane Main Street OUT - Venice of the MidWest IN

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FIRE FIRE!
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After watching The Amazing Race leaders in City Hall, after finding stiff opposition to changing Columbus into a four Lane Highway, decided another direction was needed. In Amazing Race a city visited was called Venice of the East, thus, a light bulb went off and Columbus will now become The Venice of the MidWest.

A city official who refused to me named said "This is so right on so many levels. We have had two 100-year floods in the past decade. Mother Nature is to be telling us something. This is a biblical decision and will be written about for decades."

The plan is to build another dam south of Columbus and let the gates rust closed on their own. "No need to pay maintenance fee's on this project". Then, let the city slowly fill with water. "This will solve many inherent problems with a modern day city. For one thing we will no longer have the pot hole problem. Another thing is that leaves will float and downstream and we will no longer have that pesky leaf pick up problem, money saved. Another problem fixed will be the sewage, the original problem and the need for a four lane highway.

"Instead of digging for a new sewer so we can take all the Fall River crap we can now just let it float south towards Sun Prairie."

Businesses in the downtown are, of course, a little worried but Sharrow Drug will become Sharrow Bait and Tackle with offices on their 2nd floor. Julies Java House is already ready for the extra water as they have that goofy door over the parking lot that goes to nowhere.
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OK - enough silliness. I for one disagree with the Vienna project AND the Four-Lane Highway and I hope the idea people know that we can agree to disagree on this one.

The Four Lane Highway is scheduled and I believe this is just wrong and dangerous to the citizens of Columbus. By doing this we can get free money at the expense of killing the downtown. While other small communities are actively creating a buzz with their historic districts Columbus is trying to kill it by pretending that the money saved by growth on the outlaying areas will offset the loss of businesses and good will downtown.

The perfect city is like a donut. The middle is the downtown that typically a city will get it's highest income from, it is the heart. The downtown is the engine they lowers property tax's. Surrounding the downtown is residential and then comes the industrial. Columbus is the perfect shape for a community except at THIS point the downtown is being ignored.

Many people mistakenly think that the Historical Group and the Main Street Group are only around to save old buildings when in fact they are the ones that see other towns that were floundering building "old" buildings or putting money into the historic buildings in the center of their town and creating a buzz. It is what makes the smaller towns unique. It's why businesses from large cities move to small cities.

What does Columbus have going for it. Beautiful surrounding country? No. A navigational river? No. Stable government? No. So why would a buisness want to move to Columbus.

Because of the very kind people, the simpler live, the beautiful trees and the historic downtown district. Why has this not happened?

Three reasons.

1. The people in charge and the "old school" residents who no longer see Columbus is beautiful. It's like when you buy a new home and every day you drive up and say "What a beautiful home" and you take care of it. Then 20 years later the house is still beautiful but things are getting rusty and you still love your home but you no longer "look" at it.

That is what is happening with Columbus. Long term residents no longer "look" at Columbus.

2. Some downtown businesses no longer feel the need to try. They are content with surviving as opposed to thriving. If I was a downtown buisness I would have a big planted container with flowers and I would sweep the sidewalk every morning. I would have pride some pride.

I was in Cooperstown where the Hall of Fame is (pop 2,200) about 15 years ago and I was amazed at how beautiful the town was. Every store had flowers and clean sidewalks. They had pride in their little town and that is what I remember.

It sounds dorky but flowers (big plantings) are something people remember and they take very little up keep. Heck - Columbus has Master Gardner's LOOKING for something to do!

3. Organizations like Main Street need funds to fix broken buildings. This all starts with the City Council getting off their butts and realizing they are sitting on a gold mine. As one official from Lake Mills (big buzz town) said "Columbus has something in place that took us 20 years to achieve, and it is just sitting there".

sigh - wow - this has gotten long - sorry - I think it's my Rotary Club speech coming out finally.

On to funner things.
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I attended the Midwest Horse Fair which is run by a bloggette in Columbus. I was AMAZED at this event. I was the judge for the photo contest and I think I made someone very happy with the Best In Show Ribbon.

After looking at all the photos I was torn between a professional digitally enhanced photo and a smaller Youth action photo which was the only entry in the Youth/Action area so it already had a Blue Ribbon. I really liked the professional digitally enhanced photo but . . . . . the youth photo I felt had the essence of why you own a horse. I wish I could post it here. When I looked at it I felt "freedom", I felt the cool moist morning wind flowing across my face. I could hear the morning birds. I felt the photo.

Congratulations unknown youth person from Michigan (I see it is Sara Harrington). I also see not one male won a ribbon.

I hope I can be a judge next year.

I did not take many photos of the Horse Fair - there was way way to much to take in - next year I'll be more prepared. Did you know there are parking lots that are actually over the horizon that I never new existed at The Dane County Expo Center (oops Alliant Energy Center). I did take one photo though.

I believe this is a Trojan horse and there could be an army hidden inside. I post this just for that reason. If you see a horse like this be watching for people dropping out of it at night!

Rhonda - I would love to hear some stats on the Fair - how many horses, how many attended, what the $$ impact to Madison is and so forth.
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And lastly.

We all know how dry it's been, in fact we have had zero precipitation since April 1st until Sunday. Columbus had 1.02 inches Sunday through Monday 7:00.

Friday I was in the back yard and saw some smoke on the horizon. This has been common as I've seen people burning fields. But then about 15 minutes later that tan smoke has turned to jet black reaching the heavens and about that same time I hear sirens and see trucks speeding down Hwy 89.

WELL - I hop on my horse . . errr . . . DJ and I hop in the car and take off looking for a photo opportunity. I feel a TINY bit guilty (no, not really but I feel better saying that) so I suppose I would not make a good photo journalist covering disasters.

These are not really frame worthy but I did a study and on a rating scale of 1 to 7 you get a 0.25 grater rating with a faux frame.




That's it - have a good Monday. I think I'll be meeting the new Mayor tonight!

Rod