New building for meetings part of Park plans?

While at a recent “Meet with the Mayor” gathering at town hall, our mayor was asked what we are receiving from consultants for the $95,000 we are paying them to work on park plans. Former mayor, and current Planning Board member, Bill Deter, spoke up to answer the question since he met with the consultants to discuss this project on behalf of our town. He told us that the plans are not just for a park, amphitheater, restrooms, and walking trail, but also include concepts for a new town building where meetings can be held. He mentioned that our current meeting space is at times too small.

Mayor Jim Bell followed by saying our town is only at the very beginning planning stages of a large, multiphase project. He ensured us that this project will not cause taxes to go up and it will not put a burden on town staff. Although this was said, approval was recently given by our mayor to hire another planner, $295,000 was budgeted for this project, and taxes have increased 44% since plans started being discussed last year.

I believe we need more transparency about this project. How can residents share input if we don’t know details about what’s being planned? This idea for a new building for meetings had never been previously shared.

Last year our town’s monthly newsletter stopped being sent out. We were never told why. How can we stay informed when this communication stops? Transparency is essential to having a healthy community in Weddington. I believe we need to be better informed about the complete plans for this project.

If we are going to keep and use the 3.3-acre lot next to town hall, it should be an open space that is incredibly simple to maintain. It should only need to be mowed like it currently is and have a few concrete pads added to allow food trucks and tents to be set up. This space could then be rented to groups that want to host and plan their own events like car shows, farmer’s markets, or craft fairs. This would allow the space to be used and enjoyed by our community without costing our town lots of money.

I don’t believe we should invest in a permanent amphitheater and public restrooms when we haven’t held events like this before. If leadership has decided this is the direction they want to go as I believe they have, we can start having concerts now by renting a portable stage and restrooms to have a better understanding of the cost and the workload involved to host events before fully committing by constructing permanent structures. We can test the waters before we advance. It would be unwise to invest large amounts of money into something we have not yet tried. We are not like other large towns who have a lot of staff and are already set up to handle events like this. We currently operate a part-time town hall and the addition of a new town building and amphitheater for events would be a huge growth transformation for Weddington.

There are a lot of questions that we should be asking to ensure we are making wise decisions for the future of our town. I don’t think we have thought through all that’s involved with this project, including parking, crowd capacity, cost, and security logistics, just to name a few. There is a way to allow the space to be used to strengthen our community without increasing taxes or requiring more staff.

Is it necessary for us to construct a new town building for meetings? I am hopeful that we will have transparency about these plans so we can come together as a community to be part of the conversation and have a voice in the decisions being made.