By Carol Estep to DuPont City Council Members
While I have been out of town and unable to attend the last couple City Council meetings, I am quite upset to learn the agreement with the City of DuPont and Resident Owners Association to maintain the two city parks, Ross Plaza and Clock Tower park, was voted down. Thus far, I have been unable to obtain a reason why it was other than not everyone pays into the ROA dues.
In my opinion, that should be a concern for the ROA Board and not City Council Members. We pay the same amount or more to the ROA who has less responsibility to the citizens of DuPont then does the City. In my opinion, some of these parks should never have been turned over to the City, but should have stayed with the ROA. To help keep DuPont a live-able city and our home values up, I very much would like to see my ROA dues go to maintaining City Parks and green ways.
There are a number of cities who contract/cooperate with private industries/organizations to help maintain their city parks. The City still maintains control of the park and policies for use of the park. Some websites you should view are the CityParksBlog here and here.
I also recommend visiting Central Park Conservancy site. Great insight into how private folks helped solve a problem. Link and a portion of their history below: www.centralparknyc.org/about/
You all need to start thinking about what really benefits the City of DuPont and how best this goal can be reached. If you have some good viable reasons as to why this agreement should not be signed, I would certainly like to hear what they are.