Letter to the Editor

More criticism for city parks and rec department

Saturday, December 21, 2013

To the editor:

I would like to start off by saying that I love Blytheville, Ark., and the people that reside here. I would also like to say that the people of Blytheville deserve more than what they have been getting.

I would also like to respond to the letter from the parks director (Dec. 18). First, I think Mr. Brown's title should be "parks director," not "parks and rec director." It seems Blytheville has multiple rec directors -- Thunder Bayou, Gateway Museum, Sportsplex and so on and so fourth. To call oneself the city parks and rec director would mean that you are over all of these areas. This makes me wonder why do we need all of these different directors? Why couldn't the city pay one person to be over all of the parks and rec? Why do we have a crew to mow the parks? Another for the Sportsplex? And another for the golf course? Why couldn't one crew mow all of it?

Now lets jump into the issues brought up by Mr.Brown. Nineteen workers for a city pool is too many! Also, if someone rents the pool for a party, they should pay for the lifeguards. The taxpayers' money should not be used to pay for lifeguards for private parties!

Now lets add up what we have in Walker Park -- $30,000 for the pool resurfacing, $5,000 for the gazebo ramp, $5,000 for the pond fountain, and we will say $1,000 for the duck lights. $41,000 for Walker Park! Let's just say we spent that in the other parks -- that would be $123,000.

Now lets take a look at how much tax money was left over from the 2007 bond: $1,134,033.64. What the people who work for the city fail to realize is that when the parks and rec tax was passed, it was intended to be used to make parks and rec better in Blytheville -- not pay a bunch of people's salaries!

46.5 percent of the population in Blytheville live below the poverty line. So it comes to no surprise to me that we have the governor's attention. If I was the governor, I would want to know how do you get those poor people to pay so much, yet give them so little.

On another note, I see our city government is still trying to give away $74,000 to different organizations in Blytheville. How do you get on the donor list? With all of the organizations in Blytheville, how do you decide who gets what? I understand that these organizations may do things that are good in the community, but the fact remains that our government does not need to give away money that they don't have.

Grant Massey
Blytheville