In this week’s Voices column, Courtney Napier takes to task those faulting Raleigh for removing the Molok trash bins from city property adjacent to the downtown M&F Bank, an issue Leigh Tauss reported on recently.
People, in other words, like Grayson Simon: “Have y’all seen the number of restaurants lining the corner of Hargett and Wilmington? The placement makes the most sense for those area businesses to access them. The city completely pulled this program solely because of one business, after spending so much money on testing and installation, but didn’t consider the opinions of the several businesses that benefit from it. The city did not consider the overall benefit for the whole area.
“What a complete waste of a $30,000 investment. Should they have considered better placement or at least talked to M&F beforehand? Sure. Should the city have pulled the program based on two individuals’ complaints alone? Hell no. How can progress be made if we concede to every NIMBYer?”
Matthew Tunney makes a similar argument: “The location makes sense. It does suck that the city installed these without notifying the business, but it is city property and doesn’t take away any bank parking. Was this a racial thing? I sure don’t think so, but you would need to speak with each person involved in this decision. Before this story, I was unaware this was a black-owned bank. A lot of money was put into this to just scrap it all so soon. I think the program study should be allowed to continue.”
“If the city did not have the history of building landfills and screwing black neighborhoods and disregarding the opinions of people of color, this likely wouldn’t have become an issue,” Alex Howard counters. “Maybe [the Moloks] can be split up and put around the parks.”
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