I was unable to attend the city council work session last night, but thanks to tech-savvy councilman John Heneghan, the entire meeting is available online; not only the audio but video as well (click here to view, you can also find it on John's blogsite at http://www.dunwoodynorth.blogspot.com/)! I can not say the session was compelling viewing (it lasted over 3 hours and I certainly didn't listen to it in its entirety), but it did have its moments. -
I keep reading in The Crier about the council's on-going efforts to transfer the parks from DeKalb County to the city of Dunwoody. The latest has the city paying DeKalb $4 million to obtain the parks. My response to that is, "are you kidding me!" At one time the county offered the city a long-term lease on the parks for a nominal amount. I strongly believe city officials ought to revisit this. The city has a lot more pressing issues than "owning" parks; and use of that money would go a long way towards repaving roads and reworking intersections. Heck, I think the lease even would allowed us, to a large degree, to control the parks (of course we'd have to pay for maintenance). Com'on council - tuck your egos and pet projects in your pocket and do the right thing! 
3 comments:
I agree with you Bob. Controlling our parks purpose & use is most important, not owning the dirt. Saves money and gives us control to properly maintain and use parks to match our citizen needs.
Maybe we need a "two part" strategy, here. The big "prize" is Brook Run, the smaller parks are probably more trouble for DeKalb to manage than they're worth.
Why not make a separate offer for the smaller parks, and lease Brook Run?
I think you're on to something here, Bob.
Chip
Bob said: "At one time the county offered the city a long-term lease on the parks for a nominal amount. I strongly believe city officials ought to revisit this."
I have been unable to find any significant details of that offer. If that offer is still in force (or even if not, I guess) the information should be shared and a re-visit would be a good idea.
On 3 Apr 2009, Dick Williams penned a GoDeKalb.com story, Prospects dim for bill transferring parks, that said:
Earlier in the negotiations, Ellis proposed that Dunwoody lease the parks for 49 years for a token payment, operate and control the parks and receive the remaining promised bond funds.
Dick Williams was also part of a video feature published 1 Apr 2009 entitled New GoDeKalb Show where Dick said:
”The question I’ve got for the county officials is, as they negotiate with Dunwoody over the transfer of parks, are they serious? Their offers have jumped all over the place. They want Dunwoody, in one case, to pay seven million dollars for parks that Dunwoody taxpayers have already paid for. So, are you serious DeKalb?”
The "jumped all over the place" and the "are you serious?" bits do make me wonder if the long-term-lease-for-a-nominal-fee proposal was ever a real offer from DeKalb County.
Anyone know any other details? Bueller? City council?
Post a Comment