… and with lips pursed withal, I need to express some dissatisfaction with ::waves hands:: all this.

And in particular, I call your attention to the old Brown Steel property on Lower Fayetteville Road, just before the bypass. You should understand that I had plans for that property should I ever win the lottery, and they were as follows:

• First, buy the Brown Steel property and all the property down to the bypass.
• Renovate the manufacturing structures there to become studio space for large-scale artists, particularly public sculpture artists. Build some tiny homes onsite to accommodate them. (Maybe some tiny homes for unhoused people as well?)
• Fund artists with stipends and grants to create large art, which then is displayed in the art park we construct in the forested areas.
• And then: Create a program for towns that would like to replace their Confederate memorials with something less treason-y. They select four neighborhoods/parks in their town, and then commit to spending $10,000 every two years for ten years. Every two years they get a new piece of public art (which they can choose however they like, subsidized by us) from the Factory, and after two years that sculpture is moved to one of the four parks. The fifth sculpture then is permanent.
• Also, we have concerts, parties, and galleries onsite at the Factory.

What was not to like?

So it was with a sad heart when I saw the demolition of the Brown Steel plant facilities, and even sadder heart when construction fencing recently went up around that upper half of my art park.^[1]

Curiously, there were signs on the construction fencing that had this message on them:

Oh, I thought, that’s new, a construction business that actually preserves as much green as they can. That’s nice.

I knew this was incredibly unlikely, though, so I didn’t get my hopes up, and indeed yesterday I drove by and every single tree, shrub, and plant had been bulldozed.

I realized that I had interpreted the sign to mean:

…when obviously they meant:

My mistake.

And don’t get me started on what to do with the Brown Steel property downtown.^[2]

—————

^[1] Not to mention my not having won the lottery.

^[2] You should absolutely get me started on what to do with the Brown Steel property downtown, Newnan City Council, if that is even your real name.