Enjoy Our Beautiful Parks While You Can

Gordon Clay here. Spring is here and it's time to start enjoying our beautiful underutilized city parks while we can. Azalea, Bankus Fountain, Bud Cross with its Skate Park, Easy Manor, Stout, Richard Street, Capella and Chetco Point - have you ever been to it? They are all available from sunup to sundown. But it's not cheap to keep nine city parks nice for our use, especially when they get so little use.

I talked with city manager Gary Milliman about the legal costs that the city might incur having allowed the display of religious objects on public property. It is city policy to allow organizations that rent a park to basically construct what they want within reason, without the need for city approval. He said that the Nativity scene would fall under that category.

There are other major costs besides normal maintenance. Like cleaning up after taggers and the need to repair acts of vandalism.

When you have the absolute rebellion of city inhabitants to take responsibility for things that benefit the community by taxing or creating a tax district, we're left with very few options.

One consideration is to sell the 35 acres that comprise Azalea Park. This would provide upscale housing within the city limits and would help our budget situation by providing a substantial increase in revenue from building permits and taxes. Let's move forward quickly on its sale. It should be a quick sale, much like the sale of the Boy Scout's property.

The next City Council meeting is April 12th at 7pm at City Hall.