Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	5/29/2003

Danger: Tax dollars at work

Here is yesterday's status of the new Bur-Mil Park Family Aquatic Center which was once promised to be completed in time for a summer season opening on Memorial Day weekend.

A picture named Aquatic center 5-27-03.JPG

Luckily the weather has been unseasonably cool so no one has noticed the lack of a replacement pool for the "old" Bur Mil park pool which was decommissioned at the end of last year.

For reference to other Guilford County and Greensboro public entertainment projects, the original budget for this new pool (to be taken out of a $10 million parks and rec bond voted in by an electorate with only a vague notion of how a bond works) was stated at $1 million dollars. When the bid came in at almost $2 million, scrambling was done to find a Federal program (other people's money from around the country) that would kick in about $500,000. With some tweaking of the "projected" numbers the project was launched at only 20-30% over the original budgeted outlay of local bond money.

Unknown to most of the voting pubic however was that a good portion of the $10 million bond passed in 2000 was to cover promised projects that were never completed under the $12 million bond that created the Parks and Rec Commission in 1988. Expect the $10 million to be gone as well without covering all that was promised before the vote. (editor's note: this outdoor pool is just over a mile away from the brand new YMCA indoor pool which the Y now claims they could use a few more bucks from the City tax base to help cover expenses.)

9:58:16 AM

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