This is exactly why Liberty Avenue Plaza continues to end up in the condition that it does.
Organizations, elected officials, city agencies, community members, and others can continue spending time and resources cleaning this plaza and trying to improve the space. But none of that will matter if people in our own community continue creating the problems themselves.
Some people feel bad for pigeons and believe feeding them is an act of kindness, especially knowing that humans once used them and then abandoned them. But they have continued to survive, finding their own food and water, and they can do so today. They do not need piles of food dumped into a public plaza.
What many people do not see is the nuisance this creates for everyone around them—the landlords dealing with birds nesting on buildings. The residents dealing with droppings, feathers, and bird mites coming through windows. Businesses and property owners who may then have to pay for bird mitigation and pest control because conditions are encouraged right outside their doors.
At some point, we have to ask the uncomfortable question: why should organizations, agencies, elected officials, and volunteers keep putting time and money into caring for this plaza when some of the very people using it continue to show no respect for it?
PLEASE stop feeding the pigeons. Stop littering. Respect the plaza and respect the neighbors who have to live with the consequences.