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Liberty blocks The Plaza from those wishing to park to see Obama

By Dave Thompson
and
Alicia Petska
Published: August 20, 2008

Drivers hoping to park at the Plaza and make the short walk to E.C. Glass for the Obama event Wednesday evening were met by blocked entrances and Liberty University police officers directing them instead to City Stadium.

That’s where city officials had hastily arranged shuttle service after learning Wednesday morning that LU, which owns the Plaza, would not allow event parking at the shopping center.

A few hundred vehicles ended up using the stadium lot, where city school buses had made about 15 trips to E.C. Glass by 6:15 p.m.

Lee Beaumont, LU’s director of auxiliary services, said the university never received a request to use Plaza parking space.

“There was no conversation at all,” Beaumont said. “… Nobody bothered to talk to us about it.”

He added LU had multiple concerns about allowing the event parking, including the impact on tenants of the midtown shopping center and the school’s liability if an accident were to occur.

LU officials were also apprehensive about how the participation would affect the school’s status as a 501(c)(3) organization, a designation that prohibits partisanship.

The school has previously invited Obama to speak at its campus, and has played host to former presidential candidates, including Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul.

“When you only have half a day or a day to react to something, you can’t make a good decision,” Beaumont said, adding the school based its decision on practical concerns.

“We’re not trying to make a political statement.”

JoAnn Martin, the city’s director of communication, said the city was not involved in designating the Plaza for parking.

“We were told by the local campaign there would be parking there, and that was also printed on their tickets,” she said. “I think they were operating under the assumption that was public property.”

Nancy Cloyd and Bruce Johnson drove from Buckingham County for the Obama event and headed straight for E.C. Glass, where officers near the school directed them to City Stadium.

“That was pretty good, actually, because we’re not familiar with Lynchburg,” Cloyd said. “He (the officer) gave us pretty good directions.”

Sonny Witt, Lynchburg City Schools’ director of facilities and transportation, said everything went smoothly, considering officials only had about four hours to put the impromptu system together.

Witt said some of the six buses on hand probably were unnecessary, as buses were usually only half full when they left the parking lot.

“We didn’t get the surge we thought,” he said.

Reader Reactions

Posted by ( scrivsand ) on August 26, 2008 at 3:35 pm

Freedumb TRBC doesn’t force anyone to donate money it is a choice…most people do because the Bible says that tithe is 10% of your income and its not the only church that receives these Donations! My own church provides the pastor with a home and an income, just as TRBC does.

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Posted by ( Freedom ) on August 26, 2008 at 1:16 pm

,,did anyone read the editorial in todays paper,,it says that the SS did contact liberty about parking and lu say yea for 10.00 a car,,and i guess OBAMA people figure it would be cheaper to pay the city to handle the parking,,so 2,500 tickets sold ,,so lets say 1250 x 10 =12,500$ ,,wonder if they were right !,,and does lu pay taxes for renting parking lots,,and its been years since i parked at shearton downtown ,,for 2.00 for 24 hrs ??whats parking going for,,i dont think va beach was that high ,,

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Posted by ( Freedom ) on August 26, 2008 at 1:08 pm

hey sand crab,,i wrote u something but i dont see it being posted,,anyway,,thanks for defining socialism,,now isnt all of liberty under that control,,in that jerry/johnny dont own a thing,,but rather its own by the CHURCH,,and dosent the church take 10 % to finance everything,,incl pastors houses, i,m just a little confused ?

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Posted by ( myxrds ) on August 25, 2008 at 8:24 pm

Hi Freedom,
Thanks for the “short” discourse on
1. the American political parties/political system etc
2. the background on DMV’s over-reaction and “paranoia”

I can see you are a decent person n pretty harmless after all. (I can sleep in peace tonight.) LOL.

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Posted by ( scrivsand ) on August 25, 2008 at 8:18 pm

Hey Free(dom) from having a brain. I don’t think that you remember half of the things you say go back and read some of your comments…like for instance you went on and on about the crimes at LU in one of your latest rants…did you know that every college has to post their crime stats and that Lynchburg College’s crime stats are the highest and that Randolph is the lowest, but Liberty‘s is only slightly higher?? Obviously not, but why check facts when you can continually spew lies with out facts. You have call t4nymets a socialist you have called Gay people fags and have admitted to assaulting a mentally ill person at the facility where they live. I am guessing that the reason that you live in a gated community is because most people couldn’t stand to be around you. Here is the definition of socialism a theory or system of social organization advocating placing the ownership and control of capital, LAND, and means of production in the community as a whole. Which is exactly what you think that you have the right to do with LU’s property!!!

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Posted by ( damalama ) on August 25, 2008 at 8:03 pm

Acutally….you are a dum dum. when the repbulicans came and spoke at LU, all parking was free at LU it self so doesn’t that violate their tax exemption status. no where does it say that there is a written argeement. it just says from the WSET story that they are WORKING on an argeement.

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Posted by ( Freedom ) on August 25, 2008 at 4:18 pm

,,hey skivvy sand crab!!glad i made your day,,dont underestimate my intellect,,my sickness only retarded my writing and spelling ability at the 3 rd grade level,,this really has been a learning experience for me ,now i truly get to see what a retard goes through,,and its awful..but sorry not enough for me to go away !! ,,anyway you would have just loved me in those school spelling bee contest,,yep,,last one picked !!first one to strike out !!funny how some things just dont change,,now let me go cry,,sniff sniff,,because i,m not a woman!,,did u see that hon,,she thinks i,m a lady,,got a dress i can borrow,,thks for making me laugh

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Posted by ( Freedom ) on August 25, 2008 at 3:31 pm

..hello and welcome MYXRDS,,nice posting,,but lets get a few thing corrected,,ahh,,oh first i,m the idiot that cant write or speell,,i,m dsylexic,,we have 3 things in this country and that is the republicans(big bad wolf)the independants(center)moderate and the DEMOCRATS( THE SAVOIRS),,also known as the right,middle,left,,now these people just dont get along,,and thats what you r seeing,,its call blogging,,so we r the same nice people that you have seen and meet on the fine beautiful streets of lynchburg,,we are a pleasant,peaceful,progressive town,,we are southernors,,which means we are polite,respectful and all those things,,until of course in our homes and boy do we spat/spar,,and thats all we r doing here,,we dont hate anyone,,or wish anyone ill or harm,,we are not sheiets or sunni ,,and we are not gonna go around bombing or killing you ,,thanks for the invite to LIBERTY,,but we do not want to disrupt your home away from home,and we know you are busy learning so you can be a better american or in your case a more educated person,,plus we really know how nice the LIBERTY people are,,they have done a lot of community service work around here,,building houses for the poor ,,working in the soup kitchen helping to feed the hungry and homeless,,just to mention a few of the things they do,,and if we were really really mad at lu..we would be at the gates with picket signs and a pabpts blue ribbon beer in our hands ,,picking on our local cops,,that sort of stuff,,this is just blogging,,we are hide-ing behind our computers ,,being nasty,hateful,rude,crude,,but thats as far as it goes!!so please pay no mind to all this garbage,,afterall you should see all the horrible things these people say about me,,and i,m the nicest person that you would ever wanna meet,,ok,,now to that DMV,,everybody HATES them,,dont care who you are,,rep/demo/indp,,we just hate them,,cause like you said its unpleasant,,and they run you through hoops!!but ill tell you like i tell most of these people on this blogging thing “"STUDY YOUR HSTORY”“ u c i lived in NYC for 2 years,,kinda like you wanted to see the world,,well i spent a lot of time in the TWIN TOWERS,,i use to go to the very top to catch the towers in all 4 seasons,,the lighting storms,,awesome,,the snow flakes falling and turning to rain because of all that thermal heat just like that burn out mountainside of lu,,sorry could,nt resist,,forgive me Lord,,anyway i even got sea-sick once ,,the wind was blowing so hard that the Towers were swaying,,that was real weird to be so close an see the building moving and yet not feel a thing,,see this little town made a lot of the STEAL BEAMS that went into that building,,and we have made some more for the new building,,well sorry get off topic,,oh yea what i want to say is that you are real lucky that MEN IN BLACK did,nt come get you for a vacation to cuba to do some waterboarding sports,,see this proud COMMONWEALTH let down the whole NATION it was here and maybe even the DMV you went too,well they got tricked by the TERRORIST and they got proper i.d and with that,destroyed my/our TWIN TOWERS,,so see thats why they gave you an unpleasant time,,but if you knew your history,,see you would have gone there w/jerry and your embassy and had a pleasant time,,anyway you have a great time,,but i must warn you i am anti -immagration,,so dont make me come lookin for u !!PEACE,,ahh p/s see the republican r so stupid they invaded the wrong country,,those terrorist were from saudie/arbia,,woops hope you aint from there,,chow

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Posted by ( myxrds ) on August 25, 2008 at 1:20 pm

Dear bloggers,
I am an International student studying at LU. I have been reading all the comments posted here, especially those pertaining to the Obama Plaza incident.

Firstly I would like to thank all the people of Lynchburg for their hospitality. My family and I have been here for 12 months and we are overwhelmed by the kindness and friendliness of the residents here. From the teachers at SMS, to the cashiers at Walmart and Kroger, to the drivers on the road and our neighbors in Richland Hills, people have been so nice. (I can possibly write pages of blogs about my positive experiences here, save for one or two unpleasant moments at DMV.) I have lived in different parts of the world, and I can truly say that Lynchburg is one of most live-able city in the world. (So I am kind of confused by the depth of viciousness expressed by some of you concerning the Obama Plaza incident.)

Secondly, I would like to add my 2 cents worth of comments in relation to the Obama Plaza incident. As with any discussion or debate, it is good to stick to the issue at hand. Seems to me, some bloggers have issues with Christians (in general), the Falwells, LU and TRBC. There are appropriate places/moments to vent your frustrations regarding these matters. The basic issue here is the organization of parking during the Obama political campaign in Lynchburg. To date, I have not heard anything from the Obama camp on this. But from what I have read so far, I believe the organizers committed a “boo-boo” by printing the parking at the Plaza without consulting the local authorities. (I understand these organizers were based in Richmond. I am sure we can forgive them for their ignorance of local by-laws then.) They only found out their mistake a few hours before the start of the rally. (You cannot just make assumptions based on what you think.) The reasons given by Mr. Jerry Falwell and Liberty University are valid. Mr. Falwell is a lawyer, so it is only natural that he considered the legal implications of his actions. Anyway, it is not possible for anyone (much less a public figure like Mr. Jerry Falwell) to please everyone. But if you think you can do a better job, write in to Liberty University. I am sure LU will appreciate your expertise.

P/s I do not know Mr. J. Falwell Jr. personally although I have written a complaint letter to him before. I can tell that he genuinely care for others. He actually took the trouble to address the “minor” concerns I raised. (I know mine was not an isolated case.) If you do not believe me, take a walk around campus and interview the students.

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Posted by ( Freedom ) on August 25, 2008 at 12:54 pm

ok - METS—when i lived in NYC ,i went to see both teams play,,them people are just as bad as these crazies here,,either u r a mets fan or you r a yankee,,same here either u love lu or you hate them,,anyway to lc and rc,,1) i never ever here them in the news like i do lu with all its criminals and running our city over w/ fag groups,,so there is our tax dollars going up in smoke w/police to protect the fags that u bring here,,and chase your criminal kids around,,credit card theives/abc store robbers/campus bathroom rapist/shoplifters,,unifagbomber,,etc ..funerals,,jessie helms/kenndy,,we have more police in this town than IRAQ has !!and for me calling you a socialist,,heck i cant spell the word for one,,2 since i,m an idot ,,give me date time of posting,,i,ll get back w/u,,it must have something to do w/u sap sucking our tax $$ for all you,alls crazy going ons at lu..kinda like nyc gets tired of footing the bill for the UN,,oh and the only thing i heard from rc was the protest over men commin to school,,and i dont think the cops even bothered to show up,,them girls should,nt have gone after VMI and they could have stayed an all ladies college!!and the YANKEES would wipe the feilds w/mets,yea,go yankees

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