By Hamilton Richardson
Elmore/Autauga News
Top Photo: Barbara Robinson shares comments and concerns with the Prattville City Council Tuesday night.
Improvements at North Highland Park, as well as two other city parks, were unveiled at Tuesday’s Prattville City Council meeting and although the measure was applauded by some, others shared their concerns about the scope of the project with the council during the night.
Prattville Mayor Bill Gillespie, during his comments to the council, talked about Resolution 11 and 12 on the night’s agenda.
“Counselors, on the council agenda, Resolutions Numbers 11 and 12, both involve some of our ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) money,” said Gillespie. “Counselor (Marcus) Jackson, I appreciate you bringing this up about this money to use for paving streets and also I appreciate Council Pro-Tem (Robert) Strichik for having meetings to discuss North Highland Park and considering the recommendation to use $1 million of ARPA funds for North Highland Park and bathrooms for Spring Hill and Spinners Park. It will be money well put-to-use. While no one has a crystal ball to see the future, I can only assume a pavilion or a significant structure will be built in North Highland Park area with the releasing of that funding.”
After several other measures were addressed by councilmembers, Resolution 10, 11 and 12, all dealing with local park improvements and street paving, were brought before the body.
Resolution 10 was a resolution which addressed the acceptance by the city of ownership by way of Quitclaim Deed from the Autauga County Board of Education of North Highland Park.
When the measure was read and Council President Lora Lee Boone asked for any comments, Jackson said, “One of the big concerns with residents in that area, that they wanted to make sure that there was language in the agreement that states that that park will always remain a park due to the historic nature because that used to be one of the fours sites of the old school.”
Robert Strichik, who introduced the measure, assured Jackson that it would remain a park as far as he was concerned.
The resolution was then approved by the group.
The next resolution was to support the use of state and local fiscal recovery funds from the American Rescue Plan Act for the repairs and improvement of North Highland Park, Spinners Park and Lorenzo “Lo” Pickett Park in the amount not to exceed $1 million.
Jackson spoke up again about the resolution asking about the bathroom renovations but Gillespie said that the bathroom improvement would include a similar state-of-the-art drop-in bathroom, which was also approved for the Creekside several months ago.
The item was then approved by all councilmembers.
Resolution 12 was to support $1.5 million in ARPA funds for local street paving projects throughout the City of Prattville, which was also approved.
When the time came for residents to share comments with the council, Derrick Marvin approached the group and spoke.
“I’m here to speak on agenda item 10,” he said. “I really don’t have any opposition other than I really would hope that you all would put language in the deed that specifically states that it will remain a park. Not only a park, but North Highland Park in its capacity, dimension and design.”
Marvin then asked about the agenda item supporting the $1 million for the three parks.
The resident asked, “Is that split among the three parks mentioned on the line item here or is that $1 million just for one park?”
Strichik said that the million dollars would be split among three parks, depending on the needs and scope of the project for each park.
Gillespie spoke up during Marvin’s time and said that the city was trying to get a $500,000 grant to add to the $1 million amount.
Marvin sat down at the end of his comments and Rev. Ell White came up to speak.
White said that he had information confirming that in the Quitclaim Deed, there is verbiage indicating that the park would stay a park into the future.
“I was under the impression also that with the million dollars for North Highland Park but if you’re going to split it up between three parks, we know a million dollars is not going to be a million dollars and it won’t be equitable,” White commented. “You’re going to have a design team come in and we see the average cost you put down for design is about $60,000, so you look at $60,000 for each park, that’s $180,000.”
White then questioned why so much money has been spent on Tier 1 Parks, but not on other parks.
“We have to look at diversity, equitable and inclusion,” he said. “These are business practices. Are we doing that in Prattville? Across the board for all our citizens.”
Strichik said that the Tier 1 Parks are the most-used parks in the city and White answered that if enough improvements are made at other parks, they would be used more as well.
Finally, after White’s remarks, Barbara Robinson came forward and spoke about the same issue.
“This is like a broken record, we talked about this a long time ago,” she said. “I was one of the first kids that played at North Highland Park. We’ve been fighting for this for over 50 years.”
Robinson talked about the historical nature of the area and the North Highland School and also brought up the community’s Juneteenth celebration that occurred at North Highland and mentioned that many of the counselors did not attend, however she added that Gillespie was there and she thanked him.
“We have to learn how to come together. It’s sad,” she said. “We are still fighting over 60 years for just being able to be recognized and equally treated. It hurts because we are still teaching racism and one group is better than another group. We are all God’s people.”
Robinson asked when renovations to North Highland Park would begin and Boone told her that there would be some public input involved before that begins but that they would work as fast as they can to complete it.
Robinson sat back down and the meeting was adjourned shortly after.
