About Lake Oconee news. (Greensboro, GA) 199?-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 25, 2017)
Page A10 Lake Oconee News Friday, August 25,2017 GREENE COUNTY City of Greensboro hears hoops hopes Mark Engel/Staff Resident James Bay Wright told the Greensboro City Council Monday night that there have been requests for basketball goals in the downtown area since 1994 but "we haven't gotten them yet." Mark Engel engel@lakeoconeenews.us “We need basketball goals,” James Bay Wright told the Greens boro City Council Monday night. “We need swimming pools. We need something for the kids to do because they’ve got nothing to do here.” Sometimes, you just need to go to your local city council meeting to discover what people really care about. There were other items on the agenda, but hoops became the theme of the night when Wright addressed the council on what he called “community concerns.” ‘We’ve been asking for bas ketball goals, swimming pools since 1994,” he said. ‘We were promised basketball goals, if I’m not mistaken, in 1998-2000 and we haven’t gotten them yet.” The Greene County Recre ation Center, which is partially funded by the city budget, is a large complex located on Highway 278, five miles from downtown. It boasts everything from five lighted baseball fields and four lighted tennis courts to an indoor facility with racquetball courts and a gym nasium with basketball hoops. There is no pool, and kids 12-18 must pay $1 to get into the gym. “We travel to Madison just to go swimming. We go out to the rec center and we gotta pay money just for kids to shoot balls,” Wright complained. The city is in the process of de veloping its budget for next year. Councilman Vince Lewis sug gested at the last meeting that $900,000 could be saved by elim inating the city police department and paying the county sheriff to take over responsibilities inside the city limits. Wright said he thinks that is a bad idea but “our main concern is not ya’ll’s budget, because that’s something ya’ll have to work with.” One after the other, Council members assured Wright that their main concern is what’s best for the people of the city. They also said they had a fiscal responsibility to the tax payers but would keep basketball goals in mind. It wasn’t clear how many citizens Wright was representing, but later in the meeting a woman in the audience asked if there was another area in town where kids could walk to so they can shoot hoops. At this point, Mayor Glenn Wright jumped in. “An attempt has been made in the past to place basketball goals within the city,” he said. “One place, I remember, down at the parking lot behind the police precinct. And there was just so many older adults who were down there drinking alcoholic beverages and etcetera, etcetera. And no one was there to supervise, so the decision was made to remove those goals.” The mayor said over the years the city has tried to work with the Greene County Board of Educa tion to use a vacant gym. “But I understand its being used now,” he said. Also, he pointed out, a swimming pool was scheduled to be part of a multi-phase improvement project at the county recreation complex but he wasn’t sure about its status. “McCommons has actually put up a basketball goal,” chimed in another woman in the audience. “A lot of our kids go up there and play. Other people in the community want to see the kids do something besides just walking around the street...we have parks, and they don’t have any [basketball goals], and this is right in town.” Ironically, at the end of the meeting, city council approved a new intergovernmental agreement with Greene County for recreation programs. The county will pay all the costs of the program with funding coming from property taxes. County officials say this will save Greensboro money by elimi nating funding from sales taxes. However, the city will only have a non-voting, ex officio member on the recreation board. The city will be able to create its own recreation programs. Other non-hoops action at Monday night’s city council meeting included: • Final approval of a change to the local alcoholic beverages or dinance that will allow Oconee Brewing Company to sell its beer to customers visiting its micro-brewery in downtown Greensboro. A report from Chief Ossie Mapp that morale in the police depart ment is low because officers and staff are worried about what will happen if the department is eliminated. Councilman Lewis reminded Mapp that he only offered the idea as “a tool” to consider in the budget process. Mapp said he is urging his staff to focus on doing their job. 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