[Kzyxtalk] Losing public space-don't blame Buddha (edited)

[King Collins]

 A related real and rhetorical question for Ukiah folks: 

Why do great spaces like the multi-block former Trinity school go begging? What a great space, located on the West side in the middle of Ukiah's most desirable, walkable residential area.  And who finally gets it (I hear) but the City of  10,000 Buddhas.! Great! 

They also got the State Mental Hospital in Talmage (many acres and many buildings) back in the 70s, when Reagan eliminated the big state hospitals. That was forty years ago.
http://www.asylumprojects.org/index.php?title=Mendocino_State_Hospital

Mendocino College, which was built about the same time, could have had all or part of the state hospital for virtually nothing, $1 a acre or something like that, I hear, but instead the College was built with all the blacktop and concrete and buildings, a football stadium and all the infrastructure where once there were vineyards and ag land.  Looking back one wonders how that discussion went? For the easy money, the developers, the contractors and the real estate folks, it is surely much easier to create a college with a cookie cutter design from a blank slate (ag land) than to rehabilitate an existing facility.

Anyway the 10,000 Buddhas stepped in way back then and bought the mental hospital and the associated buildings and farm. Yes farm! Because folks, that mental facility actually produced much of it's own needs with inmates working a various jobs on the farm, the bakery, etc. 

Anyway nowadays, the City of 10,000 is known in Ukiah for the kind mannered monks and nuns and others including many locals, all really good folks, and for the elementary and high school and even a sort of "university"  and for serving excellent vegetarian food. And it is one of Ukiah's few tourist attractions. 

However, the City of 10,000 Buddhas in Ukiah is essentially a clone transplanted from the Hong Kong monastery of the same name with a profoundly hierarchical and male dominated structure in both places Correct me if I'm wrong.  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten_Thousand_Buddhas_Monastery

Recent reviews of 10,000 Buddhas: "They have transformed what used to be an insane asylum and turned it into heaven. 10.000 Buddas in one hall. Services daily. Peacoks wandering about and a great vegetarian restaurant.....An unexpected oasis of tranquility. A perfect place for meditation. It's very close to town, only a five minute drive, but a totally different world."

So why have these spaces, especially Trinity School complex, left unused by the public. No worthy projects, no affordable housing, no businesses? Nothing? 

So we can't blame Buddha, or a Hong Kong Monastery.  Blame us. Why are we, local folks, so damned unimaginative and disorganized? Or are we?  Where is the muscle in our social imagination? Where are the thinkers and the doers? Sure it takes money, but there has to be something worth raising money for. 

--king collins