Barrett Knifes Community Gardeners

Evidently the community-gardener types haven't spent enough on campaign donations, eh?

On Wednesday, city officials and residents who organize and tend community gardens like this one will brainstorm what to do when the city makes hundreds of gardeners give up their connections to fire hydrants they now can tap for a fee with a permit.

The meeting is the first big public discussion of the issue since December, when the city's Department of Public Works announced that in 2011 it would end the practice of allowing gardeners at large community gardens to use city fire hydrants. Officials want hydrants reserved exclusively for fighting fires, though no specific examples of hydrant abuse by gardeners have been cited.

Community-gardening is about as harmless an exercise as one can imagine; it benefits a lot of people who actually work hard to plant and maintain their plots of beans and barley.

Too bad.