Graham’s city council voted 3-2 Tuesday night to declare the former Sesquicentennial Park as surplus and offer it for sale through a public auction.
Tuesday night’s vote follows nearly two years of pleas from Graham residents to find a way to repair the park’s sinking foundation.
The former park at the northwest corner of Court Square was built in 1999, to honor the sesquicentennial (150th) celebration of Alamance County’s founding in 1849.
The park was the culmination of yearlong festivities and fundraising efforts to leave a “lasting gift for the community,” as Sam Powell, co-chairman of the Sesquicentennial committee recalled during a meeting last week with residents who have organized a group hoping to persuade the council majority not to move forward with declaring the former Sesquicentennial Park as surplus and putting it up for sale.
During the week following Memorial Day, the park property was razed, with city workers disassembling the park and taking the memorial bricks, steel pergola, ornamental clock, and marble benches to storage before they seeded the bare lot and covered it with straw.
[Story continues below photos of dismantling the park, and the subsequent empty lot.]
Jeff Benes, a Graham resident who organized last week’s meeting, said part of its purpose was to demonstrate to the council that “there’s interest in the park” and a widespread community desire to rebuild it – as dozens of residents have repeatedly told the council over the past two years.
Later in this week’s city council meeting, the council allowed Benes and another member of the new committee, Richard Wright, to speak, but the council majority was ultimately undeterred from moving forward with selling the property. The council’s agenda for Tuesday night had listed the item as “discussion options,” rather than a voting item to declare the property as surplus and decide which one of three methods to use to dispose of the former site of Sesquicentennial Park.
State law provides three methods of disposal of surplus property owned by local governments: sealed bids, which requires the property to be advertised for sale via sealed bids for at least 30 days; upset bids, by which the council adopts a resolution to accept an offer but must accept an offer at least 10 percent or higher submitted within 10 days of the advertisement of the original bid, which starts the process over again; and a public auction, either live or electronically, for which a public notice must be advertised at least 30 days in advance.
The same state law also gives the council the discretion to reject all bids.
The council voted 3-2 Tuesday night to use the latter method of disposal: an electronic auction but directed the staff to advertise the auction both electronically and by a published legal notice.
What unfolded Tuesday night was a contentious back-and-forth between council members Bonnie Whitaker and Jim Young and mayor Chelsea Dickey – as Young lobbed accusations that the mayor had broken her campaign promise to “save the park” and said she should’ve devoted the first six months of her tenure as mayor to raising money to buy the property.
“What’s the purpose of declaring it surplus and declaring it surplus in a hurry? I’m just trying to understand why we have to decide tonight to put it up for surplus. I just asked for another six months to tack on to the two and a half years.”
– Graham mayor Chelsea Dickey
For her part, Dickey tried unsuccessfully Tuesday night to forestall the surplus declaration and eventual sale. “What’s the purpose of declaring it surplus and declaring it surplus in a hurry? I’m just trying to understand why we have to decide tonight to put it up for surplus. I just asked for another six months to tack on to the two and a half years.”
“It’s been two and a half years; we’ve got other business to do. We’ve been kicking this can down the road for two and a half years now. We’re going to make a decision tonight. Just because you don’t like the decision, I can’t help you with that. . . We don’t have to have a why. We have to have a vote, and we voted.”
– Graham council member Bonnie Whitaker
The council majority isn’t “in agreement with that,” Whitaker said. “It’s been two and a half years; we’ve got other business to do. We’ve been kicking this can down the road for two and a half years now. We’re going to make a decision tonight. Just because you don’t like the decision, I can’t help you with that…We don’t have to have a why. We have to have a vote, and we voted.” [The council hadn’t actually voted to declare the property as surplus by that point in the meeting.]
Young recalled that Dickey had campaigned for mayor last fall “on the statement” that she could come up with grants and money from other agencies to save the park. “Where is this money?” he asked Dickey Tuesday night. “You promised all of this crap when you were running. I just want to know; you’ve been saying it since you got elected.”
Dickey said, “This council has shown me that they do not accept donations and they do not accept grant funds. We already have a grant, and we already have donations for other things, and everything has either been not used or rejected.” She added that she’d been talking with a national realtors’ association about doing an assessment for the property and said that Impact Alamance and New Leaf Society, two Burlington nonprofits that fund recreation projects, “are ready to partner.”
“But they see this up here,” Dickey said, apparently referring to the prevailing hostility among the council majority.
“If we put a rainbow on the corner, tell them we’ll paint the park rainbow colors [seemingly referring to the rainbow-color scheme adopted by the gay “Pride” movement], will they give us money then?”
“If we put a rainbow on the corner, tell them we’ll paint the park rainbow colors [seemingly referring to the rainbow-color scheme adopted by the gay “Pride” movement], will they [apparently referring to nonprofit organizations Impact Alamance and the New Leaf Society] give us money then?”
– Graham city councilman Jim Young
Dickey interjected, “Guys stop. Do we not have grant funds from the state for downtown revitalization?”
Young told Dickey, “That is not what you said you were going to do. You are a Democrat.”
The city currently has approximately $480,000 in remaining proceeds from a $600,000 downtown revitalization grant that state Senator Amy Galey included in the state budget passed by the General Assembly. The city recently received a one-year extension of the deadline to spend the grant money, until June 30, 2027.
“Have you gone to the state – anybody – and asked for money for the park? What I’m hearing from you is an excuse: ‘I haven’t done that because y’all won’t move forward.’ If I wanted to save the park, and I was that passionate about it, I would’ve gone and raised the money anyway, because that way you bring it and say, ‘I have this.’ Why haven’t you done it?”
– Graham council member Bonnie Whitaker
Whitaker pressed the mayor, “Have you gone to the state – anybody – and asked for money for the park? What I’m hearing from you is an excuse: ‘I haven’t done that because y’all won’t move forward.’ If I wanted to save the park, and I was that passionate about it, I would’ve gone and raised the money anyway, because that way you bring it and say, ‘I have this.’ Why haven’t you done it?”
When Dickey asked whether, if she had the money, the council would vote to save the park, Whitaker conceded, “I’m not saying that.”
Young had also challenged the new group to get Alamance County’s commissioners to come up with some money also to repair the park.
The council subsequently voted 3-2, with Dickey and Young opposed, to declare the property surplus and offer it for sale via an electronic public auction. Mayor pro tem Ricky Hall voted with council members Whitaker and Chin to declare the park property as surplus and to advertise a sale through an electronic public auction.
That method requires the city to advertise the auction at least 30 days in advance, though if it’s done via an electronic auction, the city can provide notice by electronic only, or both.
Whitaker suggested that the city staff advertise the public auction both electronically and through a published legal notice.
At one point, Hall said that he thought the park is costing the city $20,000 per year but didn’t say what he’d based that estimate on, since no action has been taken to repair or maintain the park.
“This community has begged you to listen, to give us time. Every single thing we’ve put forth to you, you have rejected [she said, choking back tears]. For you, it’s two and a half years, because for you it was done before it began. . . Grant money was available. You’ve said no.
“Everything that’s been offered, you said no. So why should we spend our time and effort to get money, when you know you would say no? Please give us just a few months. My mother helped create this park; the citizens of this community put this together. This whole town worked together. . . Please we’re asking you just to meet and give us a little bit of time.”
– Patsy Bailey Allard, daughter of the late Pat Bailey who co-chaired the Sesquicentennial Committee that raised money to establish the park
A relative of one of the original co-chairs, Patsy Bailey Allard, reminded the council Tuesday night, “This community has begged you to listen, to give us time. “Every single thing we’ve put forth to you, you have rejected,” Bailey told the council during its public comments period at the end of the meeting, as she choked back tears. “For you, it’s two and a half years, because for you it was done before it began…Grant money was available. You’ve said no.
“Everything that’s been offered, you said no,” Bailey Allard said. “So why should we spend our time and effort to get money, when you know you would say no? Please give us just a few months. My mother helped create this park; the citizens of this community put this together. This whole town worked together…Please we’re asking you just to meet and give us a little bit of time.”
“I am amazed and appalled by this attempted land grab. This land was donated for the purpose of establishing Sesquicentennial Park. Some of us remember that, and the fact that some city council members did not live here at the time does not relieve them of the responsibility to honor the spirit of this gift.”
– Susan Ready
Susan Ready, of 505 Paris Street, Graham, said she didn’t understand how the council had voted to declare the property as surplus, since it hadn’t been listed on the agenda as a voting item. “I am amazed and appalled by this attempted land grab,” she added. “This land was donated for the purpose of establishing Sesquicentennial Park. Some of us remember that, and the fact that some city council members did not live here at the time does not relieve them of the responsibility to honor the spirit of this gift.”
Meanwhile, city manager Megan Garner also asked the council Tuesday night to withdraw plans to build a new park that had been proposed along West Elm Street earlier this year. The council voted unanimously to withdraw its plans.
Alamance County tax records list the latest assessed value for the property at $35,588.
Among other Graham residents who spoke, asking that the Sesquicentennial Park be restored and/or that the city not be in such a rush to sell the property:
Read the newspaper’s editorial page views on the council’s continued aversion to preserving the Sesquicentennial Park: https://alamancenews.com/selling-off-sesquicentennial-park-such-a-shame/
