Athens City Hall

A back-and-forth squabble over how to fund the relocation of Jimmy Gill Park may be at an end, officials said this week.

Athens Mayor Ronnie Marks and Council President Frank Travis each said a proposal to transfer funds from the city’s alcohol fund for the purpose of rebuilding the park will be on the agenda for the council’s Monday meeting.

The four-person council was split on the issue at the Jan. 13 meeting. Members Harold Wales and Wayne Harper voted against transferring the $600,000 from the alcohol fund for the purpose of the park. The men said they were under the impression that $300,000 provided by Toyota Boshoku to take care of the park’s relocation would suffice.

Toyota Boshoku provided the funds to the city because the park had to be moved to accommodate the new automotive parts manufacturer. The company, now known as Toyota Boshoku AKI USA LLC, plans to hire a little more than 400 workers at its new facility on West Sanderfer Road.

“I feel maybe they didn’t understand the issue or didn’t understand where the money was coming from,” Travis said Thursday. “I think the community disappointment was so evident, had they taken that into consideration, they may have asked those questions earlier.”

Travis said the council receives its pre-meeting packets, which contains facts and figures pertinent to what they’ll be voting on, the Thursday prior to the Monday meeting. He said he was surprised Wales and Harper didn’t use the two days before the meeting to try to find the answers they needed.

“There’s normally enough time to get those answers resolved,” he said.

Earlier this week, at events honoring Martin Luther King Jr., Marks assured the community the park would be completed one way or another. On Wednesday, he was still confident in the council’s ability to come together and get it done.

“We’ll move on because it’s very important to this community,” he said. “Not just because it’s Jimmy Gill Park, but because we made a commitment when we brought in this industrial project. We met with community residents about it.”

One of those residents Marks met with was late Councilman Jimmy Gill’s widow, Debra Gill. The mayor said she encouraged the project because she knew her late husband would have wanted the jobs.

“I asked her, ‘What are we going to do about the park?’” Marks said. “She said, ‘We’ll search the community, and we’ll find a place.’”

Marks said about five different sites were surveyed, but the city ultimately decided to build it at the former Woodland Golf Course. The city purchased the 60-acre property for $1 million last May.

The plan has been to rebuild Jimmy Gill Park on a lower-lying section of the property off Hine Street. Marks said the designated property would have to be built up to accommodate an industry, but it’s perfect for the park. The remaining property will be sold to potential industries interested in moving to Athens.

In a letter to the editor to be published in the Saturday, Jan. 25, edition, Wales explained why he voted against the park initially but said he would be in favor of approving the park.

“… Considering the resolution request of this magnitude and the amount of taxpayer dollars to be spent without adequate analysis, detail and a thorough justification, we — myself and Councilman Harper — chose to delay or to vote no, until we have mandatory questions answered,” Wales said in the letter.