A deeply-divided city council voted 3-2 during a special meeting at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning to move the Sesquicentennial Park, now located on the northwest corner of Court Square, this time to the front portion of a city parking lot along West Elm Street.
That was a variation on last month’s vote, 4-1, to move the park to a location drawn by mayor pro tem Ricky Hall, which was adjacent to and immediately behind the Graham Historical Museum, at 135 West Elm Street.
In the meantime, an architectural and engineering firm bidding for the city contract to oversee the move proposed an alternative location which the council majority accepted as the new location: to put the park in the parking lot immediately adjacent to the Roasted Coffee Depot at 131 West Elm Street and directly across the street from The Alamance News office at 114 West Elm Street.
[Story continues below photos of existing parking lot and consultant’s renderings of new plans.]
The council took the action during a 45-minute long specially-called meeting on Tuesday morning, one week after the council’s regular monthly meeting on the evening of February 10.
No public comments were allowed, but moans and objections from the smattering of a dozen or so attendees in the audience were audible, most perplexed and/or irritated by the majority’s willingness to ignore the outpouring of opposition at last week’s meeting. Audience applause accompanied various statements from mayor Chelsea Dickey and councilman Jim Young, who voiced concerns over the hurried nature of the council’s contemplated action.
At both the January 13 meeting when Hall’s plan was initially adopted, and again Tuesday morning, there was no advance notice of the specific proposals nor were members of the public allowed to speak on the subject.
Last week’s outpouring of support – 24 public speakers stepped forward in favor of saving the existing location – came during the “public comments” portion of the council’s regular February meeting, as did a report on the results of an online survey that found 92 percent of 450 respondents wanted to keep the existing park.
Even though council members had been effusive in their praise of Hall’s original proposal last month, three of them, including Hall, heralded the new concept and AI-generated renderings as even better.
Councilman Bobby Chin said the architectural proposal was a “stark contrast” to the plan originally advanced by Hall and adopted in January that would have relocated the park behind the Graham Historical Museum.
Is new location of “similar prominence”?
Much of the focus since last week’s meeting has been on whether the alternative location complies with a state law, highlighted by one of the speakers last week, that says “objects of remembrance” can be moved only if to a place of similar prominence.
One of the city’s attorneys, Bryan Coleman, said he and the other attorney had concluded that the Sesquicentennial Park meets the definition of being an object of remembrance and is on city property.
The state statute requires that if moved, the new site must be “of similar prominence, honor, visibility, availability, and access that are within the boundaries of the jurisdiction from which it was relocated.”
As to whether the new location is of “similar prominence,” Coleman said it is “hard for me to say.” He acknowledged that the West Elm parking lot location was on a busy street and that the public would have access to it.
“Everybody’s going to have a different opinion,” he said about whether the new location is comparable to its current one.
Ultimately, he suggested it may be up to a judge to determine whether the new location is of “similar prominence” to its current location.
But Chin and council member Bonnie Whitaker proceeded with comments that assumed it was. Chin described the new location as “around the block, around the corner” from the current site, could be seen from the Historic Court House, and would be of “comparable prominence.”
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How would current park be “fixed”?
Chin called on public works director Burke Robertson to explain about the potential foam injection method for raising and stabilizing the existing park floor and the fact that doing so would offer only a temporary solution.
Robertson said there were actually two methods, foam and grout (which is like concrete), which would be more durable, but also more expensive.
As to what Chin repeatedly referred to as “contamination,” Robertson explained that the presence of chromium, which he explained must go to a lined landfill, such as Alamance County’s main landfill, but it does not require special treatment unlike asbestos.
City in a hurry to use up funds
Much of Tuesday’s discussion focused on whether the city could use $483,000 in unspent “grant funds” that were designated by state senator Amy Scott Galey for Graham for “downtown revitalization.”
City officials have said those funds expire June 30, 2026. While some individuals and city officials say they have approached Galey or other state officials about getting an extension, no extension has yet been granted.
In essence, Dickey emphasized the possibility of using those funds to preserve and repair the park at its current location. But councilmen who favored moving it, primarily Chin and Whitaker, emphasized needing to move quickly so that those same funds could pay for the move, instead.
What is not known, however, is an actual price tag, or even a ballpark estimate, for the new configuration.
Hall had said last month that he estimated, with the help of Graham’s public works director, that the price would be $600,000 to $800,000.
But there has been no estimate, yet, about the potential cost for moving and rebuilding the park at its newest proposed location in the front portion of the parking lot.
Hall had said last month that the existing park occupies about 3,100 square feet. Hall described his proposal as representing 7,700 square feet (although the Stewart company estimated the same plan as occupying 6,153 square feet), while the company’s new configuration represents 5,697 square feet, according to their presentation.
For his part, Hall said little during the meeting, but asked his reaction to scrapping his plan in favor of the new one, Hall said he supported the new plan and felt it was as good as his original.
What to do in interim about current park?
The council had voted last week, 3-2, for Young’s motion to reaffirm a vote from last May that called for disassembling the current park, storing the bricks and gazebo, but council members “by consensus” (with Young and Dickey opposed) decided this week not to undertake any improvements in “safety” at the current site, which is currently fenced off from public access.
Can citizens continue to work to raise money to save the current park site?
Dickey pressed Chin, who last week challenged supporters of the park to raise money to keep it, whether those efforts should or could continue.
“If we move the park, we are not going to fix its current location,” Chin said.
Dickey also emphasized the public support for keeping the park where it is. “The community has spoken,” she said, “that we have the funds to keep the park where it is.”
She kept questioning the timeline for moving the park as being inadequate and “rushed.”
But Whitaker insisted that the architectural firm, the one ultimately voted for, had assured city officials that the park could be rebuilt in its new location by June 30. Whitaker also insisted that the proposed park takes “only a portion of” the current city parking lot.
Dickey also questioned the loss of parking: “It takes away a ton of parking,” she said.
“I don’t want to push through a project [proposed by Chin and Whitaker] that we don’t know that the community [supports],” she said.
Young added in, “I feel like we’re doing this a bit too fast.”
Young also said he wanted to give the community an opportunity to raise the money.
While Young and Dickey both voted against moving the park, Young repeatedly criticized Dickey’s continued reliance on the $483,000 grant funds that expire June 30 as the underlying funding methodology for repairing the current park, saying there wouldn’t be time before the funds expired.
Young said Dickey was inflaming residents by holding out the possibility that the park could be rebuilt with those funds that run out June 30, 2026.
He also raised a question of whether Dickey had discouraged a private fundraising effort. In an interview after the meeting, Dickey said the only thing she had discouraged was the idea of relying “solely” on private fundraising for the whole expense.
As at last week’s meeting, Dickey also mentioned the possibility that Duke Energy or Impact Alamance, or both, might provide some grant money toward the park’s repair at its current location.
Ultimately, the council voted for Chin’s motion to award the contract to Stewart Inc., which proposed the new location on West Elm Street. His motion passed 3-2, with his, Whitaker’s, and Hall’s support. Dickey and Young voted no.
