All I can say is, “Wow.”
I’m still not exactly sure why the Parks and Recreation meeting this week got so heated, but boy, did it ever.
Usually Parks and Rec meetings are the most tame of the committees and not too much happens at them.
I guess this meeting followed that guideline somewhat. Not much happened but it was nowhere near tame.
But a story has already been written about the meeting so I won’t go into too much detail about it here.
What I do want to talk about is the unwillingness to change that the council seems to posses frequently.
Specifically, I want to address R.L. Jones, and why he thinks that the city does not need to enter into contracts with those who use their facilities.
I’m going to be blunt, not having contracts for any group that uses city properties is a huge oversight, and I don’t really understand how the city has managed for so long without them.
There are so many things in the world that require you to sign a contract to be able to do them, and the city just thinks it should be immune from that?
It’s living in fantasy to think that things can just be a verbal agreement; we are talking about government here, not two 10 year-olds borrowing each other’s favorite toy.
You can’t sign in a new law without the proper paperwork, so why should you be able to operate a facility?
I know some of you might be thinking, “Well, it is just a concession stand. It isn’t that big of a deal.”
That could not be any further from the truth. If this is a place selling food that people buy in exchange for money then it definitely needs to be under a tight contract.
If a contract exists, then you can have clear and listed rules for what it takes to run that facility i.e. proper paperwork and licensure, which we’ve learned the concession stand does not have.
If something happens at that facility without any legal binding contract, it is going to fall back on the city, and I would think the council would be against the city suffering for one person’s mistakes.
Getting a contract for facilities within the city does not mean replacing the people who currently operate them, unless they are unwilling to operate within the set guidelines.
I would think that any potential manager of city property would prefer a contract. It would provide obvious and clear guidelines to what was the responsibility of the city is and what was the responsibility of the manager is.
We don’t need any gray area when it comes to how our city operates, be it from the Mayor’s office to a concession stand. This city needs some transparency and needs to purge out any backroom deals that exist because people are buddies.
It is time to let the best for the job do the job and do it efficiently and clearly, if members of the council can’t understand that maybe they should take a step down.
gwilliams@blythevillecourier.com