What do you think? Send us your thoughts in a letter to the editor. Click here for a form and letters policy or send to letters@gainesvilletimes.com (no attached files please). Include your full name, hometown and a contact number for confirmation.
I agree with Mr. Black's letter about the Chicopee Woods Ag Center. We were just there for JAKE's Day. It was wall to wall kids. All those families left there, bought gas and food elsewhere in the community.
Closing it will cause a domino effect of other closures in the area. The horse shows alone support the community surrounding it. It really is not necessary to close anything, we just need to manage better from the top down. We need to start with cutting the salaries of our commissioners. Then we need to weed out unnecessary positions and expenses. We also need more accountability from those who spend to those who pay taxes.
Secondly, the Ag Center donates free weekends that would normally cost a couple of thousand dollars to the 4-H, Master Gardeners and other community organizations. What will they do if it closes?
As for closing the parks, local gangs would thank you. That gives them a gated place to recruit, commit crimes and hide bodies. What exactly do the people who want them closed think will happen to them? How many days before thieves steal everything they can drag out of there including copper from the plumbing and AC units?
Then what do we have? More overpriced real estate? Exactly who would want to buy a vandalized, overgrown park in Hall County? The cost of repairing and reopening would be astronomical. And what about liability for someone getting hurt once they are closed? Isn't Hall County still liable if it owns the land?
Lastly, it is the beginning of summer. Families will not stay home; they will just take their children and their money to other counties. The kids who can't afford that will end up bored and in trouble.
That tiny tax increase will not kill anyone. Let's go back and talk to the managers of each of these places to see if they can trim more off their budgets before we close these places.
If you will check, I believe several people involved in these decisions have been gone since the paper published it. How nice to be able to leave and avoid questions and phone calls from the people who pay your salary the minute the heat rises.
We need a better plan.
Deanna Neal
Lula