re: Assault on Historic City Park Golf Course

Usually don't like to call anyone out in particular, so rather it is better to give some friendly advice. In the Business Report, a comment was made about BREC getting rid of poorly performing property. Okay, that is pretty low hanging fruit. And is it really to a level of truth.

Let's not overlook that BREC has achieved what a lot of Parks and Recs haven't... Accreditation and Gold Medals. So, it seems they have been doing pretty well with the hand they were being dealt. As a matter of information, a vast majority of their parks were acquired by donations. Even though they might not be high traffic areas, you just don't automatically take a donation and heap it in the trash bin. So, you create a process that can come as close to a win/win as possible.

If the notion that a piece of property is underperforming, a possible idea is to either sell it or see if a cooperative endeavor can be created wherein another group uses the park. To sell a donated property, BREC has to then trace back and find the original donor and ask if they want the property back. Most don't because they got a tax benefit... to reverse that I doubt anyone would want to go back and let the IRS know.

Some donors don't care if BREC does come out and want to sell the property. But BREC has the responsibility to notify everyone... and in some cases they meet opposition... some is legit, some not so much. But if anyone attended or watched the last Commission meeting, they found out that for some of these properties, they aren't underutilized as we might think. It was just a matter of communications (or perception) with the public in these areas. To go to a roof top and shout... "Hey look, nobody is using this park!" may be off the mark. And BREC is finding this out, but to their credit, the public didn't really let them know... but they are now. And to BREC's further credit, they are listening. And maybe this is how things get accomplished for the better. You would think "two cents" worth of knowing would pick up on this.