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OPINION

City lacks manpower to keep up current parks

Letter
Comments (8)

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

(Updated 3:00 am)

After years of resident requests, the city found money to repair and widen the Latham Park path from Wendover Avenue to Elm Street. Thank you.

But the city “might buy more park land” (News & Record, Nov. 14) — really? I love parks and love undeveloped land, but what sort of magical thinking is this? How could the city find the manpower or resources to maintain it?

Latham Park is a great example. Parks and Recreation is so understaffed, maintaining our park is a constant struggle. Since early summer storms, the limbs felled have laid by the street and crews mow around them. Dead trees lie untouched.

When we phoned the city to ask that unsightly rubbish be collected, we were told four times they are too understaffed to manage anything beyond the basics. Due to staff reductions, a supervisor had to mow the park.

How could we purchase and build parks without manpower to maintain what the city now owns?

Cynthia Adams
Greensboro

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Lakeshia

November 18, 2009 - 3:29 am EST

Float a bond issue -

rightwingnemesis

November 18, 2009 - 9:32 am EST

Latham Park is a nice floodplain for raw sewage, road waste, and garbage. Just because you live at the edge of Irving Park (wrong side) doesn't mean the city doesn't have the staff or the money to clean up. What it means is that other people need services too and you are suffering from feelings of "entitlement" due to your location. Sorry, I had to call it as I see it here.

truth

November 18, 2009 - 9:36 am EST

Channel your love for the parks by volunteering to help clean it up.

Interested

November 18, 2009 - 9:55 am EST

Most businesses, and government is a business, use one type of funds for repairs/maintenance and another type of funds for investments (purchasing the land). Typically, R&M are paid from income (i.e, tax collections) and investments are often made using credit (bond debt). While the city may be suffering from reduced income, and as such have to cut back on services, it may well still have additional credit with which to make investments.

oh good grief

November 18, 2009 - 11:49 am EST

And if those "investments" are not properly repaired/maintained, then what?

Interested

November 18, 2009 - 6:20 pm EST

If all they have bought is land with no improvements on it (an assumption I am making as the writer referred to purchases of land for future parks), what is there to maintain or repair?

Beachwalk

November 18, 2009 - 12:03 pm EST

Disregarding the regular maintenance of Greensboro's property is part of the long-range plans of our leaders. You are suppose to let buildings like the coliseum, the auditorium, War Memorial Stadium, parks, etc. continue to run down, then you ask for a bond to rebuild it or to build a new one.
Thank goodness Greensboro has a city council member (Trudy Wade) who sees this for what it is. She brought the issue up last night during the city council meeting, while discussing the extra funds now needed to build the swim complex. She said if we take money from the hotel tax and use it for something else, then eventually people like Matt Brown will be coming back to the council asking for more money to fix what the hotel tax money was suppose to be use for in the first place.
Matt Brown knows when he ask for a new auditorium, if the voters say no, then all he has to do is stop maintaining the building properly. The auditorium will run down to the point where something has to be done. Then he’ll ask the council for a bond referendum to get the new auditorium he wants.
Matt Brown should NOT be evaluated on how many new buildings he can get built with tax payer money. He should be judged on how well he maintains the buildings he is responsible for. Obviously he is not doing a very good job. But yet the council now has him in charge of a future swim complex, which no doubt will be another big hole Greensboro will have to continue to throw money into.

J.M.W.

November 18, 2009 - 4:45 pm EST

Off Topic: The News-Record wisely chooses to not allow comments on extreme stories like Lashawn Demario Whitehead turning himself in for burning a puppy. Although this is a heinous crime, I believe the worst part of it was his mom's rationalization of the event. She should stand trial along side of him as a co-conspirator in the matter. "He was trying to protect the baby." And so is she.