‘Grain bin’ design won’t be used
Steps are being taken to have bathrooms put in at Harrison Park, but the facilities will not be designed the way some members of the park’s “Friends” group had envisioned.
During a workshop that preceded a Sept. 21 meeting of the Ellijay City Council, Mike Lancaster, of Friends of Harrison Park, asked for clarification on what the council wants to do about putting in bathrooms at the downtown Ellijay walking park.
“The way it got left at the last meeting (is) it’s kind of an open question about what the city council wanted to do,” he said.
Councilman Al Fuller, who was previously the city liaison to a park advisory board that preceded the formation of Friends of Harrison Park, said the consensus of the city council is to go ahead with bathrooms that the city designs.
A design that would have used a repurposed grain silo to house the park bathrooms has long been discussed and was included in the final 10-year master plan for Harrison Park released earlier this month.
“It won’t be a grain bin. I think it’s a consensus that we’d like to incorporate a grain bin into something that can be designed down there,” said Fuller at the workshop. “It could be a shelter. We don’t have any shelter down there.”
Following the council meeting, Lancaster and his wife Linda, also a member of the friends of the park group, expressed disappointment that the grain bin design will not be used for the bathrooms. A metal silo that could be donated to the project at no charge has been found and it would be in keeping with the farm aesthetic reflected in the park master plan, Linda said.
“We spent a lot of time and (made) a couple of trips to Atlanta gathering information. We spent money on the master plan that has the grain bin included,” she added.
Fuller noted that one of the main issues is the city has a limited amount of time to get a sewage pump station installed by the Ellijay-Gilmer County Water and Sewerage Authority.
“The water authority (told) us if we built the bathrooms, they would build the pump station. That way, the park wouldn’t have to have septic tanks. The water authority has other requests, not just from the city. They put all this in their budget over a year ago for this pump station, but we didn’t get the bathrooms built. They put it in the budget a second time, and they can’t keep on putting it in the budget,” he said.
Fuller commended the Lancasters and Friends of Harrison Park for doing a great job on putting together plans for the park, but, about the silo design, he said the council felt it “was going to take longer than what we could afford to take.” Getting bathrooms put in at the park site has been a topic of discussion for going on five years, he added.
There’s no confirmed date as to when actual construction of a bathroom building will occur at the park, Fuller noted, but he did provide some details on what it might look like.
“It would be cinder block, but it will probably have a facade on it, which would make it more attractive than a plain block building. I don’t think a plain block building would lend itself to Harrison Park,” he said.
Linda said she and her husband don’t want to cause any animosity with the council. But they’re still disappointed at how this step toward improving the park is turning out.
“Mike and I are committed to Harrison Park and we want to do the right things. We really want to work with the city council and we were happy to welcome the new council members and bring them up to speed. We did have a long session in one of the workshops to talk about the master plan,” she added. “We felt like the question would be around the scale of the grain bin or whether it needed to be altered to accommodate a different amount of toilets, but we were not expecting (them) to tell us they weren’t going to do a grain bin.”
Councilman Tom Crawford said it’s important for drawings to be in place for review by the next council meeting.
“It’s only fair to everybody involved so we all know what we’re working with,” he added.
Fuller said he’d like to think the city will have a design within 30 days.
“We have one or two we’re looking at. At this point, we’re under a time restraint and we do not have the design,” he added.
In other news...
﹣ A resolution for the adoption of Shrine Club Drive as a city street was tabled again, this time until the city obtains one final signature from a property owner.
“I’ve talked with him and things are not in place for him to sign,” Mayor Al Hoyle told councilmembers.
﹣ Councilmembers approved a peddler’s license for Our Daily Bread proprietors Brian and Amber Nealy. The license will allow them to sell baked goods from a booth in the parking area beside Hometown Florist on River Street.