Local Politics
By Hardy Crunk
Dispatch Staff Writer

(excerpt)
On Thursday during a joint meeting with the Lowndes County Board of Supervisors, the Columbus City Council voted 5-1 to apply for a federal grant that would pay 80 percent of the cost of a two-mile lighted, 10-foot-wide walkway connecting Riverside Park to Highway 82 West at the Tenn-Tom bridge.

An existing nature trail already connects the Highway 82 West bridge to the lock and dam.

The local 20 percent matching share of the project would be about $275,000. The supervisors have not yet approved of paying half of the $275,000, but said they will make a decision later.

Ward 3 Councilman Chuck Weldon was the lone opposition on the council to the project.

"We already have four walking tracks in Columbus," Weldon said. "At Caldwell, the East Columbus Gym, the hospital, and at the lock and dam,"
Weldon said too many questions about the project remain unanswered.

"Who is going to clean it off after it floods several times a year? Who is going to pay the light bill? Who is going to keep the brush trimmed back off of it?," Weldon asked.

The river walk is loosely patterned after one in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
"If you go to Chattanooga and look at what their river walk did for them, you could see the possibilities for Columbus and this project," Chief operations officer Jack Marshall said.

"The average citizen on Saturday or Sunday will patronize this walking trail and say, "Isn't this great," Marshall predicted.

"Cities laugh at us for having an underdeveloped waterway," Marshall lamented.

"How can you compare us to Chattanooga?" Weldon asked. "Chattanooga has a huge tax base."

Weldon said there are a lot of places the money could be better spent. District 4 Supervisor Joe Brooks agreed with Weldon and said he can't support the project.

"I can't see spending $137,000 of our tax dollars (on the walking trail) when I can barely get windows in the recreation building in Crawford," Joe Brooks said.

"Let's keep up what we've already got," Joe Brooks added.

"We need money for drainage," Weldon said. "The last time it flooded, water got in four houses on Popular Street."

"And we need to build a new police station, a new fire station, and pave streets," Weldon continued.

"It's the chamber and Main Street that come up with all these projects that cost money," District 5 Supervisor Leroy Brooks said Thursday night.

However, Leroy Brooks, always the political pragmatist, will happily support the project if the city kicks in for the teen center he wants to build at the site of the old Sanders Pool adjacent to Propst Park.

Columbus Secretary-Treasurer Joe Taggart, guardian of the city's money, doesn't oppose the river walk being built, he just doesn't want to spend the taxpayers' money on it.

"I think 20 percent local matching share of the project should be funded strictly by private donations from the citizens who want it," Taggart said.

"That would be a good gauge of public support for the project."

"We could be using that $137,000 or $275,000 somewhere else," Weldon concluded. "We just don't need to throw that money away."

I agree with Weldon, Taggart, and the Brooks Brothers.

City officials say that if the walking trail is built, skateboarders will not be allowed to use it.

I told one elected official that he better watch out for the skateboarders when they turn 18 and can vote.

"They won't be skateboarding then. They will be chasing girls," he laughingly replied.