A group of downtown [Southern Pines] merchants met this morning. It was our second meeting, and we are meeting to discuss issues affecting the downtown merchants.
Today's meeting was focused on the park where the Farmer's Market is held on Saturday mornings. We have heard that the town wants to build a town hall on the site, and we are opposed to that idea. We would like to see it remain green.
A petition is being printed that will be available for signatures at the Ice Cream Parlor, Flynne's Coffee Shop,and the Country Bookshop. The signers must be Southern Pines residents.
We are also writing letters to the Editor to help educate people on this idea, and would like to see more letters.
Yard signs are being printed and will be available soon.
We are going to attend Town Council meetings and get up and speak about this, and are looking for others to do so, too. The next meeting is Tuesday, June 10 at 7 pm at the Douglas Center at 1185 W. Pennsylvania Ave.
Hope to see you there!
[posted by Maureen, member of Moore County Farmers Market]
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1 comment:
Maureen,
I am sorry, but I disagree with the notion that the Town should not put a new public meeting facility in the area formerly occupied by the police station.
First, there is the need for indoor public meeting space. In addition to needs for meeting space for any number of group and individual events, it has proven difficult for the various boards and commissions to reserve space for meetings. Even when meeting space can be obtained, the facility is often inadequate for the number of people meeting and attending.
Second, it is important for town government to be part of the center of the community. The Council already made the poor (in my opinion) and incredibly expensive choice of moving the police station out of downtown. How many times have I heard, “we didn’t have problems like this when the police station was in the park?” Now we want to move town meetings out of downtown permanently? Again I must note that the Douglass center is not a long term solution due to space, infrastructure, and scheduling needs.
Third, the current shelter at the park is at the end of its useful life. It has been eaten up by termites and the condition of the bathrooms has been an embarrassment to the town for decades. Now is the perfect time to make a new master plan for the park. This is the chance to enhance it and create a new multi-use building that can include indoor meeting space, non-scary bathrooms, an outdoor picnic shelter, and other possible amenities such as accommodations for a farmer’s market and a small amphitheatre.
Simply leaving the entire area that was once the police station and its front lawn as green space does not appear to address the town’s meeting or recreational needs. We have the chance to address many facility and activity needs while at the same time retaining a net gain in land area of the park over what there was when the police station, council chambers, and front lawn area took up such a large chunk of it. Why not have this whole discussion as part of master planning for the park block instead of starting off on the wrong foot with another adversarial “stop this or that” petition drive?
Chris Smithson
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