The Illuminating Tidbit
As I noted at the bottom of my last blog, at the March 9th council meeting I presented council with a packet of material pertaining to a matter of serious concern.
Anyone who knows me well will tell you that I do not tend to fly off the handle or engage in wild speculation. I always do my homework. So it should not surprise you to hear that I spent quite a bit of time doing various kinds of research before addressing council. One of the things I did was to read all of the council meeting minutes from 2005 through 2009.
Here's an interesting tidbit that I came across from the Sept. 11, 2007 council meeting. It's a report from Jim Austin (he was the Ward 4 councilman before Mayor Coleman appointed him as the city's uncertified Acting Building Commissioner in Jan. 2008). Austin gave the following Park & Recreation Committee report:
Mr. Austin advised Park & Recreation has discussed Whiteford Park and actually talked about selling the park and using the money generated by the sale toward the main park.
http://www.highlandhts.com/docs/city_council/minutes/2007/09-11-07_city_council_minutes.htmWhiteford Park is, of course, owned by the city (not P&R), yet apparently P&R thought (or perhaps hoped) it was theirs to dispose of.
Given the report above, it seems pretty clear in retrospect why the residents of Highland Woods (where Whiteford Park is located) got such a runaround when they asked P&R to replace the worn and dangerous playground equipment in the park---.P&R wasn't interested in renovating Whiteford Park---they wanted to sell it to fund even more spending in the Community Park. My oh my.
Fortunately council stepped in and assisted residents in their quest to have the Whiteford Park playground equipment replaced. I witnessed former Councilman Ted Anderson's outrage (Anderson, a former P&R member, served as the P&R council rep) when he learned that council expected P&R to use what Anderson called "their" money (i.e., funds from the taxpayer-financed P&R fund) to pay for that equipment.
LOGS had heard rumors about P&R's plan to sell Whiteford Park. That is why language was added to the LOGS-sponsored Charter amendment, requiring prior voter approval before any city parkland is sold, leased or exchanged. Highland Heights voters overwhelmingly approved that Charter amendment in Novermber 2008.
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