Having been thru several different issues with Ms. Duncan over the last year or so, you are dead on point Joe…she can be very condensending and rarely has the facts. Good points and good job staying on task Joe.

The bigger question is, why would we expect anything else from this administration? How many times do they have to exhibit their disdain for the citizens and employees of this city before we just send them packing?

Why don’t we ask them what is going to be the deal with the meeting rooms in the new libraries? Or maybe the newest addition at Barber Park. We buy them, pay for the improvements and then team Dave expects us to pay to use them. Man! What a city government we have!!

EDITOR NOTE–Cyclops,
Barber Park is County, not city. They even included a phone number for rental info in their press release today…which we declined to publish.

Why are we paying Ms. Duncan to speak to us in the first place?

As a former local newsperson, I can tell you that if you don’t report what and how the spokesmouths of Team Dave want it done, expect your boss–or you–to get calls. Ms Duncan will determine what is news and tell you “no one cares” about parking spaces–or whatever the topic of the day may be if it is less than complimentary to her boss. Any local media outlet will confirm this if they are honest.

Mr. D’Errico wins the debate.

And you’d expect the mayor’s office to know (without researching) the overriding policy that the public parks are for public use, and one party cannot deprive another party of that use.

Maybe if Joe and his people had got nekkid and hopped into the Brent Coles Memorial Fountain, the wedding party would’ve summoned the constabulary to clarify the rules.
(-;

However… speaking in Ms. Duncan’s defense… after plowing through the regularly posted “hotline” calls, can you really blame the staff for sometimes being a bit condescending? Most of the correspondents aren’t nearly as skilled with language OR reasoning, as is Mr. D’Errico.

Here is another problem…..we were thrilled to hear that the City wanted to have the fireworks again at the park. So we headed over to see them. We headed up onto Crescent Rim and found that unlike the years of the river festival that cars AND CHILDREN were allowed in the same stretch of street. We asked one of the property owners why the city allowed the VERY UNSAFE situation of speeding cars and kids in the street.

They explained that the city refused to set up the same saftey measures that were used at the River Fest time because “it cost too much for extra officers to close the east end of Crescent Rim”.

It was very clear that the city did not care that on the east end of Crescent Rim small children and speeding cars occupied the same street. We saw at least ten situations the were very unsafe.

Looks like the City once again refuses to listen to those that know and that they could care less about the safety of our children – money is more important.

First off, is Mr. D’Errico serious? Maybe the wedding party should not have taken up the entire fountain area. But, instead of showing his family how to rise above this and be happy for others on their special day, Mr. D’Errico showed anger at being inconvenienced and threw a temper tantrum. That’s what we need in this world, more angry people.

As far as Ms. Duncan’s first e-mail being condescending? Again, are you serious? She apologized for the inconvenience and promised to get Mr. D’Errico answers.

I, as well as many of the posters, have worked with Ms. Duncan in the past. She is professional and a tireless worker who demands perfection. I find her ethics to be refreshing, especially in the not always professional and often lazy world we live in today. So instead of giving Ms. Duncan a chance to do her job, Mr. D’Errico lashes out again and now has become a debated topic. Bravo Mr. D’Errico. Nice job sharing your pointless and selfish anger with all of us.

If you go to the Parks Dept. website, Ann Morrison Park at the fountain is not available for rent. It says only the Ann Morrison Park SHELTER is available. That had to have been something special, or someone special, to have even been used for a wedding.

Maybe the wedding party roped the area off without the permission of the Parks Department. I would like to know what E Duncan found out regarding the policy.

And I do think her original e-mail was a tad condescending. “I’m sorry that someone’s wedding made you feel cheated” kind of sounds like the subtext should read, “what an uncompassionate misanthropic creep you are”.

Call210 you are way off the mark here. There was no confrontation at the park, there was no “temper tantrum” in fact, my family and I moved out of the area, along with most of the other people who were enjoying the fountain at that time, I never uttered a word to anyone other than my wife about the situation while at the park.

I guess your annonimity makes you feel comfortable enough to lie and exagerate about something that you know little about in order to make your point(Now there is something that I could use to teach a valuable lesson to my daughter). Have a great day Elizabeth, uh, I mean Call210.

You are expecting a representative of the city to communicate to you in a less than condescending way, and when they do not, you expect to be treated with common courtesy and an apologetic response.

Gosh, I would have to say that your expectations are unrealistic with this administration.

Hey Elizabeth, oh, excuse me, I mean, Call210,

Joe has the high ground here. Whether you meant to be condescending and arrogant, or not, you came off, and continue to come off, that way.

Why not apologize? My guess is that this whole event would blow over if you said something along the lines of, “Joe, I am sorry you and others were inconvenienced and sorry if I seemed rude. Let me check into the situation and make sure that if anything was done improperly, it won’t happen again.”

Humility is pretty rare, and for that reason valued all the more.

I agree with Thom here. The best you can do with your written skills and time is to worry about a fountain that was blocked off for a wedding? Do you have any idea how much time and your taxpayer dollars is wasted running down trivial issues like this?

As a taxpayer, there are more important issues I would like Ms Duncan (and the other city employees who are probably trying to answer this) to work on than something as trivial as this! I’d ask how much it cost to run this down…but I would consider that trivial as well and wouldn’t want to waste the time of another city employee or any of my tax dollars on it.

Sometimes, I think this site and the people on it are right on track with the issues facing this city…and other times, not so much. Anyone want to venture a guess where this one falls for me?

By the way, I don’t consider myself a fan of “team Dave” as they are refered to here…but, come on folks, we could be a bit more “helpful” here by not wasting taxpayer dollars on trivial pursuit…don’t ya think?

EDITOR NOTE–
Deadmeat, the issue was settled and Joe got his answer from the GUARDIAN right up front–he was right, the wedding folks were wrong.

No “tax dollars” are being expended by those who trash or defend Team Dave–that is just sport at this point. Those people probably won’t get married at the fountain again, so game over.

The point of the exercise is that Joe felt his only relief was at the GUARDIAN. In light of the privatization of The Depot, Joe didn’t want the practice to spread (he told me this privately). He was truly pure of heart and looking out for ALL citizens at the outset.

For staffers to determine a citizen’s concerns to be trivial treads on thin ice.

Who is to be the judge of what’s trivial or not? Maybe the drug dealer down the street thinks the drug issue is trivial and tax money is being wasted by policing drug dealers.

I think the commotion about widening Ustick was trivial, others don’t.

I think the monopolization of the docks at Quinn’s pond is NOT trivial and is on topic for this thread yet nobody made a comment, not even Mr D, who I supported 100%.

What’s really not trivial though, is November’s election. Remember all that you read here and elsewhere and then vote for whom you think will handle the city’s affairs, YOUR way.

Deadmeat & Thom (insert impotence joke here),

You really have no conception of what Mr. D’Errico was driving at, do you?

His primary concern, a park fountain unfairly taken over for private nuptials, merely is a microcosmic slice of a much greater, macrocosmic problem of administrative ineptitude and indifference on the part of the Boise city government.

His secondary concern, the fatuous and supercilious response by Ms. Duncan, only serves to underscore, yet again, the aforementioned indifference by bureaucratic ciphers who only wish to preserve their miniature fiefdoms, while giving the illusion of due diligence concerning the very issues which afford them, quite frankly, unearned livelihoods. Condescension perceived is condescension achieved, Ms. Duncan.

And ultimately, Mr. D’Errico’s tertiary concern is more global in perspective. I am necessarily inferring, from his own written statements, that he is highly concerned about what amounts to a fascistic usage policy of public recreational space. Though a wedding is a good thing, it should never come at the expense of the many so that a few may be served, especially on a hot summer day, when a fountain’s cooling water stands between a man and a bout of heatstroke.

For shame, Boise public serpents…er…servants.