Friday, May 2, 2008 8:58 PM CDT
OUR VIEW: Empty lot at least costs less than a park
By the JG/T-C Editorial Board
editorial@jg-tc.com
The Coles County Board will decide later this month, at its May 13 session, whether to join with the Charleston City Council and develop a small park near the courthouse square.
The obvious question is: Should they, or shouldn’t they? An old saying may provide the answer: It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.
City leaders already gave a green light to an intergovernmental agreement with the county to create a park at the northwest corner of the courthouse square. That site, at Madison Avenue and Sixth Street, once hosted a bank building which the county bought in 2000 from Bank of America at a price of $426,000.
After closing the building, county officials’ plans to replace it with a courthouse annex were submarined by budget shorfalls, and the structure was demolished in 2005 in part with funding help from donations.
Now, part of the lot is used for parking. The rest remains empty.
Officials estimate the cost of creating the park will be $30,000, with the county contributing $10,000: half now and half in the next fiscal year. The proposal calls for Coles County and the city of Charleston to then split maintenance costs for the park, once it is completed.
On one hand, it’s nice that local officials are trying to do something positive with an empty piece of property in such a high-traffic area. A small park at the square could be a lunchtime destination for workers in the area. It also could be useful during public events such as Christmas in the Heart of Charleston.
On the other hand, however, it seems difficult to justify a quaint little green space that cost, essentially, $456,000.
It is disappointing to see a local governmental body spend so much money on what turns out to be an empty lot of land. To be fair, county board members likely also are frustrated by the turn of events that left them unable to utilize the land as they originally envisioned. A small park is one way to salvage this venture.
Yet with a stalled economy and tight budgets from the statehouse to the county courthouse to city hall to the kitchen table, spending any unnecessary funds is difficult to justify. The city of Charleston and the county, for example, which partner for recycling efforts in the city, just this week cut back recycling bin hours. But each will both spend funds initially and also incur more expenses — even if they are modest — by adding maintenance of this park to their to-do list.
This proposal has its good points, including adding eye appeal to the square in place of the empty lot. Also, green space is harder and harder to come by within city limits, and to preserve it and spruce it up is a reasonable goal. But surely this money could be better spent elsewhere.
Turning this site into a park may be making lemonade out of lemons, but at this price tag, in these economic times, it will take a lot of added sugar to remove the tart taste.
JG/T-C Editorial Board
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usmcvet wrote on May 3, 2008 7:26 AM:
When are some of these county board members gonna have to answer for their terrible decisions ? Probably never.
Like I said before, maybe Reggie would be interested in building another apartment complex. The city council seems to think we need more anyway. Reggie would be more than happy to buy that property at a fair price. At least that way the county board could recoup some of the taxpayers money they spent on a very poor decision. Instead of putting more money into a LOUSY idea.
City council and county board I think it's time to start making some better decisions concerning spending on BAD ideas. "