# Draft — letter of resignation from Gordonston volunteer participation **Status:** **DRAFT ONLY — NOT SENT, NOT ISSUED.** This file is a backup plan if the neighborhood does **not** hold an **affirmative vote** on the issue below before the **Gordonston Art Fair** needs people who have done my volunteer work. It can be revised or thrown away if **GNA**, trustees, or leadership meet that bar. Nothing here counts as notice until I send a dated copy to named recipients. **Why this draft exists now:** I am not picking a random deadline. The next **Gordonston Art Fair** is expected **late 2026 or early 2027**. Ads, tickets, and payment setup usually start **months** before the show. Anyone planning around **gordonstonartfair.com**, vendors, or my past web work needs **advance warning** — I will **not** help hand things off to someone else, and I will **not** volunteer again **until** the neighborhood has **voted and agreed** as described below (or I send this resignation before that fair). **Author:** Ari Asulin **Draft date:** 2026-06-04 --- ## Minimum (vote and agreement — must happen to withdraw this draft) This is **not** a demand that the park reopen tomorrow. I am looking for a **vote** and **neighborhood agreement** on one issue: **The neighborhood agrees** — by an **affirmative vote** — that **Juliette Gordon Low Park** will **reopen to Twickenham** as part of **any** serious **reconstruction or rebuild** effort (signage, grounds, **Mary Calder Cottage**, playground, policy — whatever you call the project). That commitment does **not** have to carry a completion date. I know it may take time to find money and make plans. What I need settled is the **principle**: Twickenham is **in**, not permanently outside the fence. **What satisfies me:** A real vote is held, it **passes in the affirmative**, and the outcome is clear that **reopening to Twickenham** is part of the neighborhood’s plan for the park going forward. **What triggers this resignation** (before the next Art Fair): - The vote **does not happen**, or - The vote **fails**, or - The vote is **delayed** past the point where fair planning would normally pull me back in — **delay is the most likely failure mode**, and I will treat endless postponement the same as a **no**. I **live on the edge of an apartheid**, but **I won't support it**. If this neighborhood cannot **vote yes** on Twickenham as part of repair, I will not keep volunteering through another fair season. **Timeline (not something I made up):** The vote needs a clear outcome **before** the Art Fair **production ramp** — ads, tickets, payment processing — would normally pull me back in **months** ahead of a **late-2026 or early-2027** fair. *[Insert send-by date once fair committee publishes its calendar; until then treat “before summer/fall 2026 web & vendor lock-in” as the practical warn-by window.]* If the vote does not happen, fails, or is run out on delay, I intend to send the letter below (or a tightened version) and follow through — **no transition help**, **no return** to fair or neighborhood volunteer work until that agreement exists. **Strong preferences (not required to withdraw this draft):** Once the vote passes, I still want leadership to adopt **reasonable rules in writing** that **mitigate** their concerns (noise, wear, liability, whatever) — **not blanket bans** that shut out whole neighborhoods or user groups; **Avondale** treated like **Twickenham** on access; and **real repair** on the grounds, not signs alone. I am **not** prescribing head counts or a rulebook from the outside. Those are how I think a healthy park should run — they are **not** what this vote has to schedule. **Not part of the minimum (notes for the letter):** Everything in **“Leadership”** below is **context** — why trust is gone, not part of the vote ask. **Dog-owner access**, **deferred park repair**, and **Hollywood** beyond “last straw” are **not** conditions to withdraw this draft. --- ## Letter (draft text — not sent) **Subject:** Resignation from Gordonston volunteer participation — park access vote not held or not passed To Gordonston Neighborhood Association leadership, Juliette Gordon Low Park trustees, and neighbors who use this corridor for children: I am writing to **resign** from **volunteer work** in Gordonston neighborhood programs, events, and web projects I have helped with (including **[gordonstonartfair.com](https://gordonstonartfair.com)** and related outreach), effective **[date]**. I am putting this in writing **now** — while this file is still a **draft** until the vote below fails — because **the fair’s calendar drives the timing, not my mood**. The next **Gordonston Art Fair** is slated for **the end of this year or early next year**. Ads, tickets, and payment setup all start **months** before the event. People who have counted on my web work and fair-season help deserve **warning** before that ramp starts. I will **not** help with **handoff** or train a replacement. I will **not** help **again** — not with the website, not with fair operations, not with neighborhood programs — **until** the neighborhood has **voted and agreed** as described below. That is not a bluff; it is lead time. This is not drama for its own sake. I asked for something small and concrete: a **vote** and **agreement**. **What I asked for:** That this neighborhood **vote** — and **pass in the affirmative** — that **Juliette Gordon Low Park** will **reopen to Twickenham** as part of **any** real **reconstruction or rebuild** you pursue. I am **not** demanding a reopening date. I am **not** demanding that money appear overnight. I know plans and funding can take time. I need the **principle settled**: **Twickenham is in**, as part of how this corridor fixes the park after **2011** — not left outside the fence forever. **What I got instead:** No vote, a failed vote, or — most likely — a vote **kicked down the road** until fair season would drag me back in without an answer. That is the same as **no** to me. I am **not** asking for a park with no rules. I am asking you to **come up with reasonable rules** that **mitigate** your concerns — not **blanket bans** that write off **Twickenham**, **Avondale**, dog walkers, or ordinary families. Posted hours, permits for heavy use, and **Mary Calder Cottage** rental are **fine** if they are **fair**. I am **not** setting a number or handing you a script; that is your job as stewards. Those norms are **preferences** once you agree Twickenham belongs in the rebuild; they are **not** what the vote has to calendar. I asked for a **neighborhood decision**, not a lawsuit. I **live on the edge of an apartheid**, but **I won't support it** while leadership will not even **vote yes** that **Twickenham** is part of the fix. ### The history I was sold — and the history I learned When I first moved here, neighbors kept telling me how **wonderful** the history is. I **believed it**. I wanted to belong to a place that sounded like a children’s legend made real. Since then I **actually learned** the history — not only the brochure version. **Gordonston’s** children-first tradition **helped inspire the world**: **Juliette Gordon Low**, the park gift, troops and Brownies on this ground for decades. The record includes **many Black Scouts** and, at certain points in council history, **prominent Black leadership** in the **Girl Scouts** — not a footnote, part of what this corridor once carried openly. What I learned next was the **more recent** story — the one that seems to have **erased** much of what used to exist here. Over time, **Black children were no longer welcome** in the park culture that older press and older neighbors still invoke. That drift did not stay informal. It **hardened** — gate scenes, **Residents Only**, the **2011** fight that never finished — until exclusion read as a **permanent rule** for people on the wrong side of Gwinnett. I can only imagine what **Juliette Gordon Low** would think if she could see the neighborhood as it operates today: the worldwide children’s legacy on one side of the sign, **Twickenham’s children** on the other. I am **not** saying every trustee or volunteer acts from malice. I **am** saying I cannot put my name on your fair, your website, or your closed groups while the **day-to-day practice** betrays the **founding story** neighbors still tell newcomers. I hope this letter helps **others** see that — not as politics, but as conscience. **Vote** that **Twickenham** is part of the repair, and you start to fix the story. Until then, my labor and my name stay off your volunteer stack. It is starting to seem those fixes are **not possible** here — not because the will and the history are gone, but because **current leadership** has let this place become **divisive**, **fractured**, **intimidating**, and **petty** — easy to deny in public, easy to joke off, and still **documented** for anyone willing to look. ### Leadership (not the vote — why trust is gone) The **vote** above is only the **floor** — what I would need to stay in the room. Everything here is **not** part of that vote. It explains **why** I do not trust the culture that sets the rules. This place has become **divisive**, **fractured**, **intimidating**, and **petty**. I do not say that for effect. The same script keeps running: - **Twickenham** — an **entire neighborhood** **written off** by the feud and the gate, as if one long fight could erase decades of ordinary use. - **Dog owners** — **the same pattern**: **one incident** at the iron gate becomes the story **forever**, and a **whole group of neighbors** loses the park. I do not like that. **Whole neighborhoods** — and **whole user groups** — should not be shut out because leadership would rather freeze a **single bad day** than post fair rules. **Something should be done for dog owners as well** — posted access, ordinary leash-and-cleanup norms, an end to permanent exile over one gate fight. That belongs in a healthy park culture. It is **not** part of the vote ask; it shows why I do not trust who sets the rules. - **Deferred repair** — **Mary Calder Cottage**, the playground, and the grounds could likely have been **fixed long ago** if **whole neighborhoods next to Gordonston** had been **partners** instead of **shut out**. When you treat Twickenham, dog walkers, and fair-season volunteers as problems, you should not wonder why things rot and the volunteer bench empties. I could go on about gossip, who gets heard at the association table, and who is told to “petition” at a gate. I am not asking you to agree with every sentence. I am saying the **vote** exists because **leadership** would not move without forcing the question. ### The last straw (Hollywood / Facebook) The **Hollywood** incident was the **last straw** — not the first wound, and not what this letter is mainly about. I could write at length on **taxpayer-backed police**, **traveling crews**, and **industry money** that never hits a neighborhood ledger; **I will not do that here.** What matters for this resignation is what happened **after** I spoke on **Gordonston on Facebook**: An admin (**Jack Taylor**, on the public record) **deleted** a post about **filming and public cost** before I could finish a reply, **purged** my posts, **removed** me from a group used for **cat rescue and other programs**, and **denied** any path to **appeal** the rule he alone interpreted. His public note cited **“no politics”** and **“no personal attacks”** while admitting I was **complaining about being banned** — I had **not** attacked any neighbor before or after removal. The framing did not match what I had actually posted. The **hardest** part was not one admin: **almost no one spoke in the thread when it mattered**. Private messages of support came **after** — **after the fact does not matter**. Everyone watches. I already know I am **not crazy** and **should not be treated this way** as a neighbor. ### The intimidation factor By **intimidation** I do not mean only loud threats. I mean what happens when people **break their own rules and the norms neighbors claim to believe in** — and everyone **looks the other way**. One example: a **hashtag campaign** was developed and posted around this dispute. Someone **messaged my wife** and asked **her** to ask **me** to remove my post. In the end I agreed — but **only** because of a **deal I made with my wife**, not because the neighborhood square had answered anything on the merits. From the outside that can look like me **giving in** to people who are willing to **break the rules** to get their way. I could describe what that opens at home only as the start of a **spouse war** — pressure routed through family instead of answered in public. I will not run my household or my name through that again for the sake of a Facebook group. From the **gossip** I have already heard about this neighborhood, I can see how that pattern is **normal here**: when it happens, **nobody calls it out**. People watch. Private messages arrive later. **After the fact does not matter.** That is the same pattern as the admin delete and the purge — easy to deny, easy to **laugh off**, still **real**. I cannot keep **showing up** in a place where breaking norms is routine and calling it out is optional. I will not pretend this is a healthy neighborhood square that treats **good-faith questions** as **politics**, **censorship** as **goodwill**, **family pressure** as **consensus**, and **silence** as **peace**. **What I am stepping back from** - Further **volunteer work** on the **Gordonston Art Fair website**, **ticketing**, **ads**, and **payment processing** tied to the fair. - **Transition** support — finding vendors, training a replacement, or keeping systems warm so the committee can pretend nothing changed. - **Showing up** for **neighborhood programs and events** in a volunteer or organizer role — **ever again**, unless the **affirmative vote** above has passed first. **What I am not abandoning** - My **home** on this corridor. - My **daughter** — you may still see us at the park **only** to bring her there when access allows; that is **parenting**, not volunteering for your programs. - My right to speak **outside** closed groups — including the public record in [Make Gordonston Great Again](https://paradigmthreat.net/influence/controlled_opposition/make-gordonston-great-again.md) and linked investigations. If leadership later holds a vote that **passes in the affirmative** — **Twickenham** included in **any** neighborhood **reconstruction or rebuild** plan for the park, with no requirement that I set the construction timeline — I will reconsider **helping** again. Until then, consider this **resignation** firm. It is **nothing personal** toward individuals I have worked with. If you **disagree** with what I have said here — about the park, the ban, the silence, the intimidation — then for you it may be personal. I am still writing as a neighbor who hoped this place could match its story. Respectfully, **Ari Asulin** **[Address / phone — insert before send]** **ari@asu.edu** --- ## Internal notes (strip before send) - **Recipients (draft):** *[GNA board contact, park trustee contact, optional copy to city council district office if author chooses — not listed here.]* - **Do not send** while vote window is open unless leadership clearly refuses a vote, delays past fair ramp, or vote fails. - **Art Fair calendar:** Confirm committee’s published date; back-plan **months** for ads/tickets/merchant processing before locking send-by date. - **Transition:** Author explicitly **declines** handoff — recipients must plan alternate web/ticket lead **without** author labor. - **Tone check:** Letter is resignation from **volunteer participation**, not a threat to leave Savannah. - **Jack Taylor:** Named because of **public admin statement** on record; not a demand for personal punishment. - **Hashtag / wife message:** Author-supplied; **messenger not named** in send version unless author chooses. Strip or soften if sent to wide list. - **“Spouse war”:** Author phrase — consider whether to keep in letter to trustees vs. reserve for private cover note. - **Dog owners / single-incident pattern:** Not vote tier; moral context only — same pattern as Twickenham “whole neighborhood written off by one incident.” **2011** press dog-walker gate scene: dossier **R1**. - **Mary Calder Cottage / deferred fix:** Author opinion — alienation delayed repair; not part of vote floor. - **Vote floor:** Affirmative neighborhood vote that **Twickenham reopening** is part of **any** rebuild/reconstruction; **no** completion date required; **delay** = trigger same as fail. - **Hollywood:** **Last straw** in letter only; full ethics lane in [MGGA](make-gordonston-great-again.md). - **Black Scouts / Girl Scout history:** Author ethical read; expand with dossier primaries if letter is sent. **Not proven:** racist intent behind every trustee act — lived exclusion + **2011** press (**R1**). --- Keywords: #make #gordonston #draft #resignation #letter #volunteer #participation