Dalton council members table vote on property purchase for downtown park

Published 9:33 am Tuesday, August 16, 2016

DALTON, Ga. — Judging from the turnout at Monday night’s Dalton City Council meeting, the concept of a new central park downtown has widespread support. But the plan being considered by council members has left quite a few people with quite a few questions.

Some members of the council apparently agree. Council members voted 4-0 to table a resolution to ratify and accept agreements for the purchase of several properties, essentially an entire city block, that would become a new downtown park of approximately three acres. It would be bounded by King Street on the north, Crawford Street on the south, Selvidge Street on the west and Pentz Street on the east. King Street would be closed to connect the park directly to the county parking deck.

Mayor Dennis Mock typically votes only in the event of a tie.

“I just want to make sure we have all of the information we need from a financial and legal standpoint to move forward,” council member Denise Wood, who made the motion to table, said during a work session before the meeting. “I don’t think I have that information right now.”

Council member Gary Crews, who seconded the motion, said he believes the park would be a great benefit to the city, especially to downtown Dalton.

“But I do think we need to spend a little more time explaining to people why we want to do this,” he said.

Council member Tyree Goodlett said he was concerned that people were asking him about things council members had discussed only in executive session closed to the public and media and said he did not know what he was free to discuss.

A standing room only crowd of more than 300, easily the largest to attend a council meeting in several years, packed the council chamber. And two dozen residents and business owners, again the largest number in several years, spoke on the proposal.

Shane Lovingood said the park would be a great benefit to the city.

“The quality of life is so important to Dalton’s continued success,” he said.

Several speakers touched on the fact that many people who work in Dalton, especially young professionals, choose to live elsewhere, which they said was due to the lack of things for them to do in Dalton.

Bob Caperton said the city needs to invest in the sort of amenities that can help it attract those young professionals.

“And the place to start that investment is (in the park),” he said.

Dalton State College President Margaret Venable said she was not speaking on behalf of the college but she did say the park would help attract the sort of events that college students would like.

But a number of people said they like the concept of the park but had many questions about it. Several noted that the first they had even heard of the park was a letter to the editor written by Mock that appeared in Friday’s edition of The Daily Citizen and a story on the project that appeared in Sunday’s edition of the newspaper.

“Yes, we do need something,” said Antoine Simmons. “But that’s not a lot of time.”

John Didier said it sounds like he could support the project but worried about the lack of public discussion before the council decided to possibly commit some $4 million to purchase the property.

“If we don’t have public meetings, how are we going to get people to buy in?” he said.

Speaking on behalf of the Downtown Dalton Development Authority (DDDA), Chairman T.J. Kaikobad said the DDDA board “approves the concept” of the park but would like more information to present to downtown business and property owners.

Several speakers said they’d heard the DDDA had agreed to raise its property tax in order to commit $500,000 to help fund the park, and a power point presentation on the project showed the DDDA as one of the funding sources for the estimated $6 million to $6.5 million project.

But DDDA board member John Davis said after the meeting the authority has made no financial commitment to the project.

“As T.J. said, we are in favor of the concept and have talked about it with the city, what we could do, what they would want. But we have not seen any numbers,” he said. “We still need more information that we can take back to the people who elected us (downtown business and property owners) and get their feedback before we can make any commitment.”

The funding plan also calls for significant private investment, though council members said they can’t say for sure how much that will be.

“There’s a little bit of ‘chicken and the egg’ at work,” said council member Tate O’Gwin after the meeting. “Many private investors don’t want to make a commitment until we make a commitment, but I know the mayor is out there knocking on doors and talking to people, and I know the reception has been positive.”

Former Dalton mayor David Pennington noted that a large portion of downtown is already government property or owned by a church and not taxable.

“Businesses are being squeezed out,” he said.

Mock said he was pleased that only a couple of people were outright opposed to the park.

“We had to be discreet because this did involve the acquisition of property and dealt with real estate,” he said. “But it is in the public now and we can talk about it. We are going to try to answer as many questions as we can, and I think we can already answer most of them that were asked tonight.”

Council members got contact information from everyone who spoke and said they would get back to them.

Council members plan to discuss the project further in an executive session closed to the public and media during a meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 23, at noon at City Hall, and have scheduled another vote on the resolution that was tabled Monday on Thursday, Aug. 25, at a time that has yet to be determined.