Future of Propst Park in front of Columbus City Council once again
COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI) – The future of Propst Park was in front of the Columbus City Council once again.
A petition has been circulating to put a $3 million bond issue for improvements to a public vote.
After the Columbus City Council voted to borrow $3 million for park improvements, some concerned citizens created a petition to put that issue before all of the voters in Columbus.
Ward 5 Councilman Stephen Jones called the petition an excuse.
“They say it’s created to stop us from borrowing the money, which is money that is set aside with 2 percent tax so it’s not raising anybody’s taxes but at the end of the day, I think it’s just an excuse,” Jones said. “They do not want us to complete Propst Park for some reason. I guess they think that the kids in the city do not deserve to have a viable park or a nice park to play in.”
Some of the major expenses in the park proposal are the addition of baseball fields and the resurfacing of existing ones.
Columbus resident Helen Pridmore said she doesn’t see the need for it.
“I don’t think that baseball fields are the best use for our money because so few people play baseball anymore,” said Pridmore. “I think if they want to do this for the kids, we need more playground equipment out there. We need lighting so people can walk early in the morning and walk at night. We could expand the disc golf course, which is used a lot. The splash pad could be improved. There are just so many things that could benefit more of the town versus spending it on baseball fields when the county just built a whole baseball field.”
Jones said the city is no stranger to taking out loans for what the people need.
“Look at it how it really is,” said Jones. “You know we’ve borrowed money before. This money is set aside and we will have the money to pay it back for the next ten years. A lot of people have been fed misinformation. If they take the time and look at it for the whole situation and stop looking at it from a black and white issue or county vs city issue, then we would be much further along in this process”.
Pridmore said she and the community just want to have a say in what happens to Propst Park.
“I’m gonna send this out to Stephen and say, you know come talk to us,” Pridmore said. “I live in your district, a lot of us live in your district, and we would love to give you our ideas before we go forward. That’s all we want to do. We want to be able to have some input. We don’t want to squash your dreams of improving Propst Park at all. Just let us have some say in this conversation.”
“We spoke to the people,” said Jones. “We’ve had meetings and we asked them to tell us what they wanted in Propst Park. You know we did that. That was a delay tactic. So we went ahead and did that and now we want to delay again. So at the end of the day, let’s get the job done. And let’s move forward for all of our kids.”
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