(This story arrives a little too late for Flagpole’s deadlines, so I thought I’d share it here.)
Athens, Ga. October 15 2009
Recent heavy rains have pushed back the completion of the Reese-Pope park, ACC officials told a neighborhood meeting at Hill First Baptist Church on Thursday night, effectively canceling the grand opening set for the following weekend.
Leisure Services administrator Kent Kilpatrick told West Hancock-Reese St. residents that “if the weather had cooperated, you’d be looking at a completed park.”
“I don’t want to blame the man in his own house,” Kilpatrick told a crowd of 20 gathered in the pews. “But he makes the weather not us.”
With the park’s grand opening long set for October 24, the government and the neighborhood were antsy over the un-poured basketball court, the unfinished sod and landscape and the un-paved sidewalk, but Kilpatrick reassured residents that once the ground had a few days to dry out, the park would be completed quickly, possibly within two weeks. At this point, the playgrounds are installed and all the major earth moving is complete, it’s just a final series of tasks that must be wrapped up.
First, contractors must roll in heavy cement trucks to pour the basketball court. After the big wheels are gone, finishing the landscaping and the sidewalk will be no problem. Contractors have been sitting on go for three weeks, Kilpatrick said, and were within 24 hours of working recently before another bout of wet weather arrived.
Funding for the one acre park comes from two community block grants, written by Kilpatrick, that total over $220,000 $290,000. (Correction after reading an ACC press release 9/19/09. Kilpatrick had said this number at the meeting, but I went with the confirmed amount on the Leisure Services website.) But Kilpatrick said the finished product will have a much greater value because of in-house work performed by Leisure Service staff who wanted a prize model for the city. The extra effort helped stretch the original grant, he said.
Neighborhood residents and church members appeared to be okay with delays, but still voiced concerns about continued vagrancy in the park, the possibility on someone stealing unbolted picnic tables and uneasiness over what types of activities could occur behind a wall on the far side of the park. Kilpatrick said it was best to wait until the park opened to see how it’s used before addressing these issues.
James Alford, of the church’s Deacon Board, told NBNT a few days earlier that he worried that neighborhood and church parents wouldn’t bring children to the park if the city didn’t deal with the vagrancy problem. It will all be a big waste of money, he said.
Police officials who attended the meeting said there’s an ordinance in the works that will help them ban offenders from the park, but added that residents will have be diligent in reporting problems to police.
Deacon Alford announced another meeting covering all these subjects soon.
