Dayton, Ohio: City Officials Facing Criticism for Decision to Evict Garden Station.
Garden Station, a well known community green space and event location in Dayton, is being closed and torn down to make room for development. It is still unclear what city officials are planning to do with the space, but what is clear is that many members of the local community disagree with the decision. Mayor Nan Whaley and city manager Shelley Dickstein are facing criticism from the local community for the decision to evict the Garden Station volunteers in order to make room for urban development. I went out to meet some of the people involved with Garden Station to get a better idea of what is going on there. When I arrived, I met with several of the volunteers who have worked on Garden Station for the 8 years it has been a part of the community. Lisa Helm, who is the primary organizer for Garden Station spoke with me as she enlisted my help moving some buckets of soil into a small pickup truck “The thing with this is that it is much more than just a community garden.” She said. “Just a small amount of it is community garden. There’s a lot of community events that go on here, it’s an event space. We have festivals here as well as many non-profits who have their events here." She also added "We are working on a teaching program for people to learn how to produce high rotation, high value crops."
Garden Station is not only a community garden and event space, it has been a model which other cities have wanted to replicate. “I’ve had crews from other cities come wanting to model this in their city, in Kentucky and Lima.” Lisa said. “This is a model for most places that are progressive and community oriented.” I asked her what her thoughts were on what the City is doing with the land. “I think they don’t realize how tied we were to the community. It’s not just like they tried to say ‘it’s just a couple Hippies and artists.’ We’ve had over 3000 people help build this space. Over 300 community organizations have partnered with us either by sending volunteers or donating materials.” Before becoming Garden Station, the lot was vacant for as long as 50 years according to volunteers. It was a haven for drug use and criminal activity. “It was a tunnel of honeysuckles. We hauled out mattresses, tents, 5 gallon buckets of feces, and loads of trash.” Lisa said. Annie Foos whom I spoke with earlier, said she completely believes the lot will go back to being a hotbed for criminal activity. “We’ve already seen a taste sample of that with the arson.” Annie told me as she pointed out a burnt down structure near the wall. “This is just a sampling of what is going to happen.” She continued. “We have a heroin problem in this town.” “She (Mayor Nan Whaley) just basically has given them a free place to use drugs.” said Annie.
I met with a man who goes by the name 'Chewy' who spoke more about the arson that occurred on the property. “I was out here the day before and noticed some of the pond liners were missing from the day before.” He said. “They were too big and heavy to just be hauled away and I suspect they were part of the fire.” Chewy has been working with Garden Station for 2 years and mostly tends to the flower beds and general maintenance. He told me that he often ran security cameras on the property. One such camera on the night of the fire, had the memory card removed which he thought was very suspicious. “To me if it was a typical vandal, they would have just taken a bat to the camera”. He said.
Everyone I spoke with told me they have been trying to work with the city to keep Garden Station open. They have attended meetings trying to make compromises with the city. However, the city has not been willing to work with them. “They feel like they have a legal right to put their flag in the ground.” Annie Foos said. “They have no plans. They just want their land back.”. Lisa Helm also spoke about the compromises they are trying to make with the city. “They’re talking about building town houses. Which seems a little crazy because it’s so close to the tracks.” The garden sits right next to an active railroad track. She added “We were trying to find easement info on this. Some guys further down the tracks said they have this easement. 50 feet from the tracks, they can’t build.” This easement would prevent the city or any contractors from building anything within 50 feet of the tracks which is where most of the community garden plots and murals are located. I asked the volunteers what they wanted to tell the community at large. Annie Foos, when asked “Why should we save this place?” said “Because a great group of Daytonians, thousands upon thousands, rallied together to help the city and make it a better place. And we know we have a vacant lot issue. We have a drug issue here in town. And we don’t have much green space in this urban area. So we care about people. We care about this city. And we are brokenhearted that Mayor Whaley and Shelley Dickstein made this decision.” Lynn Marie Solon said “They are paving a paradise and putting up a parking lot.” She added “If there’s something pure and they’re trying to do the right thing, then the people who are about the money are gonna try and do something bad. It’s like over and over just like with the Indians. It’s an American Holocaust. This is a smaller version. People have to wake up and get it done and we have to be peaceful about it, you know, but sometimes you have to open your mouth too and not just spread your buttcheeks.”
One thing that hit very close to home for me personally was the Mayor and her staff having the audacity to go about taking all of the copies of the Dayton City Paper which had printed an editorial about Garden station. This was what got my personal interest in this story. I am going to take my journalist hat off and put my activist hat on for just a second. Mayor Whaley. Silence this *expletive*… Best of luck to you... In conclusion. No matter what you think about politics or government corruption, one thing stands certain. Politicians are not going to fix our communities. Politicians are not going to take care of our communities. It is our duty as members of the community to ensure our communities are safe, clean, and productive. We cannot wait for politicians who care only about numbers in polls to do it. We have to come together as a community and do it. That, in my opinion, is exactly what the hard working volunteers at Garden Station have done. As the mural at Garden Station reads, "The future belongs to the few of us still willing to get our hands dirty." Damn straight!
For those interested in helping Garden Station you can join the group here Defend Garden Station.
You can also sign the petition here Keep Garden Station at its current location as a green community space.
(Article by: Mathieu C. Hubin) Photos by: Mathieu Hubin Photography and Graphics