Graham’s city council remained divided this week over the future of the former location of the Sesquicentennial Park that was dismantled by the city’s public works department immediately after Memorial Day.
Councilman Bobby Chin told his colleagues he wants the city staff to prepare information on the procedures available to the council to sell the former park property as surplus.
City manager Megan Garner suggested that there were probably three or four methods that could be used. She also said she did not think state law would require a public hearing on issue.
The council agreed to put the issue on its July agenda.
Mayor Chelsea Dickey again failed to get her colleagues to agree to seek bids on the actual potential costs to repair the park.
Dickey did ask that the city’s attorneys explore further whether the city will face any liability for having demolished a monument.
A state law provides that an historical “object of remembrance” located on public property may not be permanently removed and may only be relocated under certain guidelines.
However, council member Bonnie Whitaker has previously stressed that a public safety threat, as she and a majority of other council members said existed at the park before its removal, makes moot the limitations of state law.
Nonetheless, Dickey asked that the city’s attorney research the issue.
While Dickey succeeded in getting the attorneys to research the legal issues, she did not succeed at getting a council consensus for seeking bids for the park’s possible repair.
Assistant city manager Aaron Holland said that getting bids would be “extremely difficult” if sought simply for information purposes, as Dickey had suggested.
The city’s contract engineers reported to city hall recently their estimates that the cost for repairs would be in the range of $573,000 to $653,000.
But other council members objected.
“It’ll be a ‘money pit” [to repair the former Sesquicentennial Park, with costs that will] “balloon enormously.”
– Graham city council member Bonnie Whitaker
Bonnie Whitaker suggested the council might be trapped into making continual increases to a contractor who made a lowball bid to repair the park. “It’ll be a ‘money pit,’” Whitaker suggested.
Change orders and amendments from a future contractor could cause the city’s costs to “balloon enormously,” Whitaker said.
But state law actually outlines the parameters for accepting only the “lowest responsive, responsible” bidder.
Whitaker stressed later in the conversation that she did not want to incur “any liability” for the city of Graham in connection with the former park location. “Period. End of conversation.”
Councilman Bobby Chin weighed in opposing using any taxpayer funding to restore the park.
He suggested that interested citizens could form a limited partnership, collect funds, and buy the land from the city.
But Dickey stressed that “community members” see no way forward inasmuch as the city hasn’t indicated any willingness to work with private parties.
“You don’t need council approval to create an LLC to raise money [for the park]. ”
– Graham city councilman Bobby Chin
“You don’t need council approval to create an LLC to raise money [for the park]”, Chin responded.
Mayor pro tem Ricky Hall suggested that the engineer’s parameters had been based on a premise of going down eight feet underneath the existing floor, but he suggested that the city really needed to remove dirt and debris and excavate 19 feet below the park’s former surface.
Hall predicted future bids would be “astronomical.”
As Dickey pressed for a possible consensus among council members, Whitaker, Chin, and Hall said “no.”
Councilman Jim Young said he would like, if for nothing more than information, to obtain bids on the possible cost for repairing the park, but that maintained the current 3-2 stalemate on most issues associated with the park.
Earlier this year, the council voted three times to relocate the park, but when the bids for building a new park on West Elm Street came in – with a low bid of $1.2 million – the council opted not to proceed further.
