Let’s just burn the money
Monday, June 21st, 2010
Local governments are famous for spending money on a “plan” then ignoring it. There are literally millions of plans sitting on shelves across the nation collecting dust. One such plan is in Billings, MT.
It’s no easy task to identify the worst part of the Billings City Council’s vote against disc golf in Pioneer Park last week, but let me try.
The worst part wasn’t the council’s arrogant, condescending attitude toward disc golfers, who were characterized by opponents — a characterization not challenged by anyone on the council — as rude, belligerent, drug-abusing gang bangers.
It wasn’t the council’s craven surrender to that small group of opponents, who trooped to the microphone to gripe about the damage being done to “their†park.
It wasn’t even the council’s breezy refusal to consider the results of a professionally conducted, statistically accurate survey of city residents, which showed broad support for disc golf in Pioneer Park.
No, it was this: The City Council spent $86,000 of our money on a huge, detailed master plan for Pioneer Park. That plan laid out a thorough, virtually no-cost series of recommendations that would have dealt with every substantive problem associated with disc golf in the park.
And what did the council do? It utterly ignored those recommendations and simply voted to remove disc golf from the master plan, effectively banning that sport from the park. The council might as well have voted to burn $86,000 on Community Seven television.
What plan is sitting on your shelf being ignored?
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