This is one that i am sure EVERYONE can agree with me on.
A Louisville community center horror story.

So from last summer to early February, I was volunteering with the “Brycc House” community center in old Louisville.

www.brickhouse.cc

Which apparently is the only 501c3 community center in that entire area of Louisville.
They also operate a low power radio station that gets bounced to fern creek and doesn’t even transmit to Louisville.
When I was invited to the center by one of their board members, I was amazed at the sanitary conditions of the place and how it was being run.
But the CW was keen on setting up a downtown studio location and I wanted to teach.
I spent Months of removing toxic levels of animal facieses from their ceilings, removing trash, volunteering events, building them an entirely new stage and lighting system, setting up a working public education program, setting up work stations for digital A/V, and even opening a dialogue with Webster University and MTTC for expanding a downtown public education program. After all of that we could only use a small part of the building for safety reasons and I had to fight their board to get any more help.
After the first two months, I noticed that I was the only person keeping their building open to the public on regular hours (All of the two days out of a week that I could be there).
Students from Belerman and the local high schools were coming to our classes and even now some of my students are on projects with the local CW and WBKI.
The project was working.
But the rest of the community center was coming apart.

Their board of directors is being run by self proclaimed “Anarchists”, “Socialists” and “Communists” and their meetings amount to little more then a few hours of bickering and blatant inactivity capped off by complaints about why people like me get so annoyed with the inactivity of their board of directors or the sanitary conditions of the building.
Repeatedly they would promise expansion and development, that they had proper permits and insurance to run this operation (which they do not) and that “things would get better”.

You may all remember the downtown clean up project that the mayor’s office was handing out checks for last year.
Well the Brycc house, “brickhouse” got their $300.00 check, cashed it, the board used the free t-shirts as rags, one of them took the disposable camera provided for documentation to use for themselves and the others took the trash bags provided for home use.
Nothing got cleaned and no one showed on clean up day.

About three months ago we noticed that mice began showing up in the building. Lots of them.
Then a bad smell began flooding the building not to long after the carpet got some heavy water damage form a broken pipe.

By the time I had to pack up our computers and move my students to a new location, people began getting sick for the fumes in the building.

Even though several of us have reported it to metro call and the mayor’s office, nothing has been done.
THEN I find out that this entire time, the building hasn’t even been ZONED properly and is still listed as a ‘medical training facility’.
Because at one point within’ the last 30 years it was apparently or training center for morticians.

Just two weeks before I had left their two radio engineers took off because there were people going on the air using profanity and the FCC had been compiling several complaints.

Not to mention that a few months before that, I bailed out one of their board members from the Shelby county detention center for having a violent outburst in a probate hearing.
Around that same time they tried to file for a high power license with the FCC for some new spectrum available in southern Indiana and they wanted ME to sign off on some fraudulent asset lists and a really crappy engineering report for the project. The guy they had doing the finance collections for the project bailed on them and stole an entire hard drive that contained contact sheets and business records for the Louisville Visual Arts Association.

Now this so-called “community center” is still operating apparently.
Bringing high school kids in on week ends for concerts.
I’ve seen how they run these shows first hand.
They are under staffed, there are plenty of kids running around with booze and drugs, the bathrooms they provide to the public are entirely unsanitary and almost like clock work there is some kid puking their guts out on the floor or around the building somewhere.
Again, having reported this to the city and even the federal government (as they are a 501c3) nothing had been done.

The Brickhouse is a perfect example of why good community projects refuse to operate in Louisville or end up leaving Louisville as mine did.
I refuse to return to old Louisville and I now bring my students all the way to a studio in Shelbyville.

Just what kind of city is this?

quote:

Originally posted by Justin La Plante:
Their board of directors is being run by self proclaimed “Anarchists”, “Socialists” and “Communists” and their meetings amount to little more then a few hours of bickering and blatant inactivity capped off by complaints about why people like me get so annoyed with the inactivity of their board of directors or the sanitary conditions of the building.
Repeatedly they would promise expansion and development, that they had proper permits and insurance to run this operation (which they do not) and that “things would get better”.

Anarchists, Socialists, and Communists, oh my!!!

You must be one of these spoiled little rich kids who want to totally change the world and when things don't go your way, you pick up your toys and go home. Well goodbye and good riddance. I'm sure that the Brick House is better off without you.

Stop your whinning and move on.

It's a tough crowd here Justin. I'm guessing all the names you've been calling people didn't sit well with them. Go figure.

I do have an observation tho if you're interested. Does the term "wet blanket" mean anything to you? Almost everything you say is negative. According to you, Wave3 sucks, Louisville sucks, the government sucks, Wave3 members suck, republicans suck, America is doomed, Janelle is a lousy uneducated anchor not even on par with your teenage cousin, HMO's suck, Bush sucks, Reagan sucks, and on and on and on. And you've only made 68 posts as of this post! Most of those were spent calling people idiots.

Do you see where I'm going with this? Holy crap... Is there *anything* you like other than complaining? How about just trying to communicate rather than dominate? You have an audience of MAYBE 4 regulars.

You said you don't drink... maybe you should reconsider that decision.


Edit: Oh yeah, I forgot to address the topic. I'll bet if you act in real life like you do in the forums, I can pinpoint the troubles you have in getting support from people. There are a lot of great causes that go under staffed and under-funded. If you're going to use this particular one as a platform for your disgust with the city (big shock), maybe you're better off not being a part of it. And I'll bet the lack of support in Louisville is more support than the non-existant programs in Shelbyville. At least Louisville has it.

I'll give you the credit you deserve, most people (including myself) don't give as much time as you have to such a cause. But since you couldn't get your way, you gave up and now you're using it as an excuse to spew negativity. I guess the old saying is true... when the going gets tough, the tough go to Shelbyville.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: canon_photo,

Gave up?
The board of directors for this “community center” doesn’t even have an insurance policy that covers using it as a community center and people were getting sick from being in the building.
I didn’t “give up”; I left because I didn’t want to be incriminated with criminal activity or subject people to black mold.
Another factor being that since I was the only one keeping the place open on days, I had to divert several classes we had scheduled for the public to deal with sanitary issues or public events they had scheduled assuming that I would provide staffing on projects their board of directors were to lazy to do themselves.
The students in my program also did volunteering and donated money.
Was I supposed to indenture their contributions and cut off the education they expected just because the people who are supposed to be operating this place never want to operate it?
I guess I just didn’t want to be as corrupt as most civic programs in Louisville would prefer.
You mean that next time I should just go with the flow.
Sure, I’ll stand by while some shiftless moon bats blow YOUR money and provide a toxic waste dump for YOUR children to hang out in.
I guess you think it’s perfectly fine that the mayor’s office handed over a check for a public beautification project to these people and they didn’t even participate.
That’s YOUR money.

How about this. As a simple alternative, I’ll just swing by your place in person and we can go out back and burn some of your cash.
If THAT is what you prefer in a public service, I’ll be happy to serve in that capacity.
Heck, instead of burning the money at your place, I could take some of it with me and “burn” it some place else.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Justin La Plante,

There's two sides to every story. I'd like to hear the Brick House side. I very much doubt the Brick House is full of Anarchists, Socialists, and Communists as you state they are. Sounds more like a poor little rich boy who didn't get his way. Wouldn't it be better for you to separate yourself quietly from the Brick House if you didn't find it to your liking rather than try to tear it down for everyone else who is happy there???