In Friday's N&O, the paper highlighted Raleigh's plans to finally move forward with planning a park from land purchased in 1973. The article notes that "In 2003, voters approved $2 million as part of a bond package to begin development of the park. It's likely not enough to complete the entire plan."
We approved a park bond in 2003 for this and it takes this long to get moving? Why is it that we seem to be able to tear up and replace downtown in half the time it takes them to get a public meeting held just for the master plan on this park? While the N&O quotes a $2 million figure, the City of Raleigh's website says that $130,000 was allocated for planning of Timberlake Park.
Still, it has taken four years to get to this stage of planning?
And apparently we don't have the funds allocated to finish the park at present.
They have moved forward on redesigning City Plaza after the Plensa fiasco and finding $16 million in about a year and we've only come this far on a neighborhood park that at one point was plagued with drug dealers?
Will Jesse Taliaferro push for as expeditious movement on this as Raleigh has done with City Plaza? She should. It's in her district. She could scale back City Plaza even more to make funds available for projects such as this that the lower-middle class residents of that area of her district could enjoy.
Or she could just raise taxes and fees to cover more plush renovations of downtown Raleigh that voters have not been given the chance to vote on.
Wanna bet which project gets done first? I know where the smart money is.
One more thing:
Location - Outside the Beltline
