Time is running short for you to volunteer to help clean up Prospect Park for Ypsi Pride Day 2005. I have received ten thirteen confirmations from people who will be there. The group will be spending the first hour of the clean-up “encouraging” other neighbors who didn’t volunteer to come help, and by “encouraging,” I mean toilet-papering their yards. There will be doughnuts and maybe some Thunderbird or Cold Duck — depending on what we find during the clean-up.

It’s important that this event be well-attended and come off smoothly. I was thinking that the Historic East Side Neighborhood Association needed to build itself into a powerhouse organization so that it could crush the Normal Park Neighborhood Association, but when I thought about it, that seemed to be thinking small. HESNA needs to become more powerful for more important reasons — secession.

For those of you residents old enough to remember when Ypsilanti first got its City Charter from the State of Michigan, you will remember that this was dependent upon Ypsilanti and East Ypsilanti (wherein I reside) merging. I will leave the historians to fill in the blanks for you because I am more set on rising up and throwing down the shackles of Greater Ypsilanti and more importantly, the Westies as they were known in the 19th Century.

This plan does have some drawbacks because we would not have police or fire service, but that’s nothing roaming gangs of vigilantes can’t solve. The thing we should focus on is that if we choose to secede is who’s going to stop us? Ypsilanti doesn’t have an army. The State is so cash strapped, if they can’t properly fund cities and municipalities, they aren’t going to mobilize the National Guard over this. It’s practically fool-proof. The only threat I can see is Ypsilanti Township trying to swoop in during the initial turmoil and claim our lands as theirs. We might be able to use the Thompson Building as cover to defend the western front, but because the building is structurally unsound and would probably collapse easily, I would help in defending the eastern border. We can spend part of Saturday morning refurbishing the cannon and perhaps sending a couple of test shots into Superior Township.

Whatever the case, if you would like to engage in a bit of civic spirit (or plot to take over Ward 3), please email us HERE so that I know how many doughnuts to bring.