I've been eating a lot of donuts lately thanks to the Vibrant Batavia program! Today was installment #4 - a very well attended morning at Kibbe Park in Batavia. Most of the attendees parked along the park side of Oakland Avenue. Since I came in from Kibbe Avenue, I opted to park in the corner parking lot at the bend where Kibbe and Oakland meet.
As I pulled into the parking lot the first things I noticed were the ponds in the middle of the parking lot and the mogul course surrounding them. After a heart pounding 30 second Jonny Moseley like Olympics run I was able to swerve to a halt in a somewhat level parking spot! WHEW!!!
Now THIS is a parking lot that needs repair! Is it owned by the City of Batavia? Probably. Is it on the list of infrastructure to be repaired? Maybe.
We all know the sequence of events that led to the recent repaving of the parking lot along School Street at the corner of Center Street. The argument for moving paving up a year was to avoid further deterioration and potential need for structural repair. The price tag: $30,000 that was NOT planned to be spent this year. Disaster averted...maybe.
And yet just a few blocks south there sits a parking lot in far worse condition than the School Street lot was before repaving. The Kibbe Park parking lot is not only deteriorating, it's down right not even close to being flat! And THAT parking lot didn't warrant attention? How did the Ward 5 City Council representative not see that problem? How did the City crews who were out there all summer long doing work in the park not report the problem? How did repaving at Center and School become the priority?
Oh yeah, dumpster enclosures...
Now maybe, just maybe, the City isn't responsible for the parking lot at Kibbe and Oakland. If that's true, then who is? It's bad and needs some TLC in a hurry. However, the real likelihood is the City does own the Kibbe-Oakland parking lot and we've all been duped...again.
The proof is in the pavement. Go have a look. I wish our City Council representatives had taken a look before they voted on the Center-School parking lot repaving. At least one of them lives in Ward 5. Are our representatives that far out of touch with our small community? Maybe. More likely we're just not being told the full story.
Is it really too much to ask for truth in government?
For reference, here's The Batavian's coverage of the vote to repave the Center-School parking lot:
