Local Hippiness

The big local news this last week was a bunch of hippies (mainly college students) attempting to "reclaim" a vacant lot owned by the city and trying to establish a community garden, if you came down and broke a sweat, you'd be able to take some of the vegetables home.  Seems like a pretty cool idea, although they were trying to set it up without city approval, and the city hopes to find investors willing to build small business and possibly apartments on the site, giving downtown a much needed economic boost.  I swung by a little while ago to try to get some pictures, but apparently the police beat me to it.

The evolving story was pretty entertaining, especially in a quiet little mid-west college town (for comparison, we had the first "drive by shooting" I can think of Wednesday night... and oh is the whole event great for a laugh) originally the mayor had stated that there were no plans to do much about it, then the other day the police cited a couple of the hippies and posted no trespassing signs around the lot, which were quickly taken down by the hippies.  Apparently the city got tired of it (if I had to guess, due to their setting up tents and sleeping on the site) and arrested them all early this morning and tore everything down.

I kind of enjoyed following the whole debacle, and really found the whole thing pretty funny.  You see, there's a reason that the city's been sitting on a vacant lot in the heart of downtown Stevens Point.  The site was once upon a time the location of the Lullaby Furniture Factory, which closed around 1996, and the building was later torn down.  It is now believed that the ground has been heavily contaminated with lead.  So if somebody really wanted to build a house on the property, you would be advised not to put in a vegetable garden.