Letters from the Issue of July 22, 2004

It's also ironic that the attack on Bob came just after he successfully led, for the seventh year in a row, the Upper Eastside Fourth of July celebration in Legion Park. It should be noted that Bob, along with the UEMC, saved the Legion Park Community Center from being turned into a school for troubled children. Now it is a true park building with active programming which also serves as a true community center. The UEMC's "Friends of Legion Park" committee is now working to establish a farmer's market in the park by this fall.

I could recount two decades of Bob Flanders's civic leadership, but I'll just leave it at this: The Florida Department of Transportation's design for reconstructing Biscayne Boulevard through the Upper Eastside is nearly done. This has been a UEMC project for the past seven years, and now construction is on the horizon. The Metropolitan Planning Organization even appointed the UEMC as official design partners with FDOT. So a few years from now, when you drive along the new boulevard -- with new stoplights, streetlights, a landscaped median in parts, new crosswalks, and new sidewalks and landscaping -- remember to thank Bob Flanders, who like the rest of the UEMC, has devoted years of volunteer efforts to resurrecting Biscayne. It hasn't just happened all on its own.

David Treece

Miami