Saturday, January 30, 2010

TL LETTER TO THE EDITOR: River Common project: What Were They Thinking?

by Michelle T. Boice of Harveys Lake

I copied this from Ms. Boice's letter to the editor in the January 29th Times Leader:


Due to years of rampant corruption and gross mismanagement, Luzerne County is nearly a half billion dollars in debt.

The payment on this debt this year alone will cost county taxpayers nearly $25 million. This, folks, is the reason our elected officials ignored our pleas to stop the seriously flawed reassessment and force the company that charged us $9 million to go back to the drawing board and get it right.

Serious cuts need to be made and our elected officials need to become more accountable. They need to do the job they were elected by us to do and pay attention. With that said, I cannot help but wonder what could have been done to save Moon Lake Park had we not spent $30 million to build the River Common, a place where you cannot camp, cannot swim, cannot eat any fish you might catch, etc.

In fact, you cannot spend a few hours there with your family because there are no toilet facilities.

Just over the bridge is beautiful Kirby Park with all the amenities, and then some, that they are attempting to offer at the River Common.

Therefore, I see this $30 million expenditure as our own little “Bridge to Nowhere.” The architects, engineers and out-of-state contractors made money on this concrete, stone and flower project, which might look pretty, but it looked pretty before we spent $30 million. Now the people have been saddled with the annual maintenance fees for the park that will exceed the annual cost of keeping Moon Lake Park open. Yes, a park used more and more by county residents, strapped by an economy that doesn’t allow them the luxury of taking a family vacation to the shore, let alone Disney. No common sense seems to have been applied here.

What were they thinking?

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