Foam Containers, Denials, Messes

The Mack and Third concert organizers got all the garbage out of Cass Park, but the lawns on properties surrounding the park were not cleaned up by the cleanup crews:

Employees of the African-American-run Michigan Chronicle arrived to work today to find a pile of event trash on their front lawn.  I'm not keeping my fingers crossed that they'll note where this mess came from in their next edition, as they were one of many media outlets promoting the event last week:

"Interestingly, Cass Park has long been known for the multitude of illegal activities that go on there. However, in preparation for the 2009 concert, the benches were removed. Afterwards they were not replaced, thus re­ducing the number of unsavory characters hanging out and doing business there.

'I didn’t know that,' said KEM." (24 August 2011)

Maybe if the Michigan Chronicle calls the event organizers and tell them trash was left on their lawn, Kem will say he knows nothing about that, too:

But the Kem event has a history of denying responsibility.  After a year of trying to get them to pay for the restoration of the sculpture in the middle of the park -- which a citizens group had to pay over a thousand dollars to restore -- the event organizers said that it wasn't the event volunteers who painted over it.  But in the first two seconds of this Kem video on YouTube his volunteers are seen white-washing the sculpture:



Didn't know about that either, eh, Kem?

There would have been a lot less garbage in the park if Detroit was forward-thinking enough to cut down on park waste by outlawing the use of foam containers in parks as California state legislators are proposing.  There would have even been less park waste had the organizers used reusable flatware, plates, and drinking glasses when they served the homeless with dignity, but providing real plates, real flatware, and other tableware was an expense organizers weren't willing to pay.

Mack and Third promoters, please come back and clean up the rest of the mess you left.  The city of Detroit is hurting and doesn't have the money to clean up after you or any of the other foam-container fly-by-day charities your activities encourage to come down and make messes of Cass Park. 

Piles of garbage bags in front of the former assisted-living facility:

Pallets abandoned by the Forgotten Harvest trucks:



Twenty Cottage Inn pizzas were delivered to the Baptist Center, Kem's base of operations, after Kem performed.  I guess the pizza from Midtown pizzerias weren't good enough for them:

Litter and and an overflowing garbage can east of Cass Park:

UPDATE 5:00 PM:  It looks like someone came by and cleaned up in front of the Michigan Chronicle, but the other piles of garbage remain.