River park study “irrelevant”
Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
County Commissioner Betsy Barfield didn’t mince words when it came to her views on the results of a recent feasibility study that a Georgia company did of the Wacissa River Park to determine if the park warranted improving or expanding.
“I can’t tell you how disappointed I am in that group of people,” Barfield told the commission on Thursday evening, June 4. “The study was irrelevant. It was lame. Weak.”
Barfield was referring to the study done by Sand County Studios (SCS), a Smyrna-based urban design and environmental planning firm that the commission hired in January for a fee of up to $45,000. SCS presented the findings of its 13-week study to the commission about two weeks ago.
Barfield said she found it amazing that a professional company could think that it could visit Jefferson County once or twice and produce a quality product.
It also bothered her, she said, that a firm that regularly did business with the county hadn’t gotten the contract, but an out-of-state firm had.
“I don’t know how these people got the bid,” she said. “Dewberry Engineering would have rocked the study. Having a company from 200 miles away is not doing us any good.”
Clerk of Court Kirk Reams agreed.
“I was disappointed too,” he said. “The committee recommended them based on the work that they did in Florida. But I could have done what they did.”
He also didn’t understand why the study had been limited to a two-mile radius of the river park, he said.
Barfield asked that the board hold the payment until the company returned and narrowed down its results more specifically.
“We need a drill down,” she said. “The study was nothing.”
Barfield said that she didn’t know how U.S. Treasury would view the expenditure, given that the work was being paid with RESTORE Act money, whose use Treasury scrutinized.
“They are very fussy,” Barfield said of Treasury. “But I also don’t think it’s right for us to accept this study as is. I can’t in good conscience spend this money. I like for these people to come back so that we can ask them to go further in the study. This is just unacceptable. What we got is quantity over quality.”
In the end, the commission agreed to have Barfield write SCS a letter requesting that it return before the board. It also instructed Reams to hold payment until further notice.
In its presentation to the board of the study’s results on May 20, the SCS people gave a generalized assessment of the park, noting its value in terms of its natural beauty, historical and environmental features, and existing facilities. The study found that the park’s undeveloped areas had potential for improvement. But the presenters emphasized the assessment’s very preliminary nature, noting that it would require a more thorough, in-depth study to determine any specifics.
In terms of the park’s expansion, the study identified 503 parcels within a two-mile radius of the park and ranked them based on their sizes, characteristics, access to the river, and suitability for acquisition and opportunities for development, among other factors.
Two things that the study didn’t do were to identify the parcels’ ownership or if they were for sale. It also excluded consideration of state public lands. The study also did not recommend what specific parcels the county might consider purchasing, other than to identify 13 as being very high in suitability for acquisition, 21 as being high in suitability for acquisition, 72 as being of medium suitability for acquisition, and so on.
The formal contract called for the study to provide a detailed description of the park property and its structures; identify potential uses for its undeveloped areas, such as for parking, stormwater retention, camping and wildlife observation; provide the park’s long-term maintenance needs and estimated costs; and provide an assessment of the long-term risks and uncertainties associated with the different acquisition and improvement options.
Commissioners’ idea was to use the study as a tool to guide them in their decision-making when it came to acquiring additional land for the park and deciding how best to convert any newly acquired property into a county-operated site, as well as identifying public uses and access improvements that could be made to the park.
River park needs rules
Lazaro Aleman
ECB Publishing, Inc.
The Wacissa River Park’s growing popularity with the public is proving a problem for county officials, both in terms of the number of people accessing the site and some of their unruly behavior.
The common complaints, according to Commissioner Stephen Walker, whose district takes in the river, include loud music, alcohol use, obscene language, inappropriate parking, loose dogs and vandalism.
In short, making for the kind of scene that makes the park not appealing to many local residents, especially families with children.
“The complaints at the head of the river are really the same as they have been for years,” Walker emailed. “One issue with enforcement is that there seems to be no penalties established to match the county ordinances that are in place.”
The issue is one that Walker continues raising at commission meetings, hoping to start a dialogue or public forum on the issue.
“It seems that every week or so we get calls for more signage,” Walker said in his email. “The problem is that users pay no attention to the signs. Some have also mentioned a lack of parking, but additional parking may not be a good idea, based upon the amount of trash that we already see getting dumped into the river.”
Commissioner Betsy Barfield likewise decries the situation, calling it a sad state that local residents often can’t access or enjoy the river because of the goings on of people who often are from other areas.
“I’d like to see our taxpayers have priority,” Barfield said. “It’s out of control. Maybe we need to have a user fee to get in.”
At the commission meeting on Thursday, June 4, Sheriff Mac McNeill told the board that under the current circumstances, there wasn’t much that his deputies could do in terms of enforcement, absent a county ordinance with teeth.
McNeill said it had never been the intent for deputies to become park rangers. The reason that deputies had started monitoring the park, he said, was to contain some of the rowdiness and make the place safer. But if officials wanted deputes to enforce the rules relative to the parking, loose dogs and other issues, it would required a local ordinance to that effect.
“Once we start enforcing the rules, the word will get out,” McNeill said.
The way the issue was left, McNeill was to get with County Attorney Scott Shirley so that the latter could draft an enforceable ordinance to present to commissioners for their review and approval in the near future.