(Fair warning: John is complaining again, and its a long one!) They began the assault at dawn but this was no military action. This was our local county work crew dismantling the swimming pool at Walter B. Williams park. For months, discussions continued about how to make repairs without having to also make additions required under the ADA. Laws excluded businesses from having to make those additions with the stipulation that there is no need to provide access to existing pools if doing so is not readily achievable. Providing access is not readily achievable if it would involve significant difficulty or expense. Youll be glad to know that our government didnt waste any time finding out if they were required to do this or not. They instead just declared that the pool needed a million dollars worth of renovations. Excuse me? Its a hole in the ground. How can patching leaky plaster and renovating an old equipment room / changing area cost a million dollars? Because of that it needed to be demolished and it had to be done quickly. After all, it was a liability where now its just a field. The real problem is much deeper than that though. The pool & building fell into disrepair because of poor or no maintenance for an extended period of time. Like the dilapidated ball fields next door, the pool facility was simply neglected into ruin. Instead of holding anyone accountable for this failure they decided to almost literally sweep it under the rug (or the ground) by bulldozing the pool & buildings before anyone knew it was going to happen. Its easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, right? Those responsible for not maintaining the property face no consequences for ruining what we once had. Weve been sold this bill of goods before. Remember when we needed all new schools because the buildings were falling apart? It was almost an emergency. We spent millions to house nearly every student in the county within a one-mile strip. Students no longer attend a school in their neighborhood but are bussed to the warehouse of learning we created for them. Those buildings that were in danger of collapse? They are still there some 15 years after we were assured they werent worth fixing. Some stucco was all it took to convert the old Northside Elementary into a thriving business complex. Sally Davis? Boddie? Harrisburg? They still stand with no changes at all since we were told they werent worth keeping. They havent been sold and they havent been renovated, yet they manage to house various community groups. Southside school was picked apart by vandals, so much so that it will be hard to sell it for anything but scrap. Too bad - the value of the land & building was over 1.6 million dollars. Thats our government though. They know whats best for us. We should shut up and just let them run things they way they should be. Oh wait, they did that already - look how it turned out.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Mar 2014 04:19:17 +0000
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