About three dozen residents turned out Tuesday night, hoping to organize themselves into a group that can persuade Graham’s city council not to move forward with plans to sell the former Sesquicentennial Park site, at the northwest corner of Court Square, as surplus property. Instead, the group hopes to get the council to rebuild the park to honor the city’s and county’s history.
The park 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 fund-raising efforts to leave a “lasting gift for the community,” as Sam Powell reminded the residents during a meeting Tuesday night at First United Methodist Church on North Main Street in Graham. Powell was the co-chairman of the Sesquicentennial committee; he was then and is again a county commissioner.
Powell reiterated a frequent theme of a number of speakers: “Let the council know that people care” about having a park to honor the city’s and county’s history.
Also present were relatives of the late Pat Bailey, the other co-chairman of the Sesquicentennial committee.
Expected to be on the city council’s agenda next week is a discussion about potential procedures the city could use to sell the corner lot as surplus property.
[Story continues below photos of the Sesquicentennial Park and the now empty vacant lot.]
Much of the discussion at Tuesday night’s meeting focused on how to stop the council from rushing to judgment on initiating a sale and, preferably, persuade council members of the importance of restoring the park.
Jeff Benes, a Graham resident who organized the 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.
Benes said he has requested for the item to be on the agenda in such a way that citizens can speak about the importance of restoring the park.
The council’s recent practice has been to prohibit allowing public speakers on agenda items, unless in connection with a formal public hearing.
Daniel Alvis said part of the challenge was to persuade the council of the value of the historical park. “The city looks at it as a liability,” he summarized of the council’s current attitude.
Paul Crotts noted that he had been one of the fireman who had assisted when the original Soda Shop building caught fire in 1977. It was subsequently torn down and the lot used for impromptu parking for years before being bought by the city to build the park.
A triumvirate chairmanship was ultimately agreed upon, consisting of Richard Wright, Jane Albright, and her brother Jim Albright. All three are Graham natives.
For her part, Jane Albright also gave a brief report on the possibility that a coalition of like-minded residents would pursue a legal challenge to the council’s action. “I think legal is the only way we can win,” she told the group earlier in the meeting, before being selected as one of the co-chairs of the group.
Jane Albright also noted that the rebuilt park “doesn’t have to look like it did,” noting that changes to the design were entirely possible, an option also mentioned by Powell.
She said that an attorney with a Greensboro law firm is now examining the history of the council’s actions on the park to determine the likelihood of prevailing in litigation against the city.
For instance, during the more than two years that’s there’s been council discussion about the park’s future, there’s been only one formal public hearing, last September.
Three plans presented earlier this year to – in January, February, and March – to relocate the park did not have any public hearing, although residents turned out en masse at the February council meeting, and about two dozen residents in an overflow capacity in attendance expressed their support for keeping the park.
In the week after Memorial Day, city workers disassembled the park, ultimately taking the memorial bricks, the donated brick and steel pergola, an ornamental clock, and marble benches to storage. All that currently remains on the site of the former park is a vacant lot with the beginning of fresh grass coming up through the straw that had been spread after the elements of the park had been removed.
