Gleaning Facebook: Keep public lands in public hands

 If you are not registered to vote or if you are new to Rome and haven't yet registered here, now's the time. Your vote is so important this off year. Tomorrow, Monday, October 5 is the deadline to register if you will vote on November 3.

Please register and vote.

Save our Central Park.

Keep public lands in public hands.

Roger Wade:

So............... Do you think we should trade the same contaminated GE park area with PCB's that I grew up playing in........ On woodbine ave...... Or maybe part of the batty campus???? Or the trash dump wet lands??? At any rate...... Any price under $125,000/acre should be unacceptable.

Terrell Shaw:

You are right about the the price. 

This land is so beautifully situated as a link between the wonderful Ridge Ferry Park and the Jackson Hill area, that it would be close to criminal to lose it for that reason alone. 

On top of that, despite the fact taht part of it once was a city dump, that waste is well covered and safe from disturbance as it sits. 

On top of that, the wetland area is valuable as just that... it stores water, filters pollutants, and shelters wildlife. 

On top of that, the "Duck Pond" was and could again be a quaint and attractive spot along a very unattractive urban sprawl strip from E. Eighth St on Turner McCall allthe way past Huffacre Road on Shorter Ave... it beautifies our downtown. 

On top of that the relatively dry areas near the tracks and where the city has their solid waste offices is prime territory for future park improvements ... an expanded ECO Center, a raptor amphitheater, an arts center, more picnic and play ground areas, a skateboard rink, or some other parks and recreation or educational use. 

The possibilities are nearly endless for the larger Rome of our future. But once our public land is in private hands, all those options, whether for us or our posterity of the next hundred years, are gone.

Growth will come. That is pre-destined and fore-ordained. No one can stop it. But how much nicer our city will be in a hundred years if we control that growth, and keep lots of greenspace, historic buildings, trails and bikeways, etc. These are things we do for the future.

Keep public lands in public hands.