In its regular session Monday night, the Harlem City Council continued discussions about Harlem City Park.
Columbia County Commissioner Alison Couch attended to present a proposal that maintenance and full discretion regarding use of the park be given back to the city, starting Jan. 1 of 2024.
“I believe that the Harlem City Council and Harlem mayor are most in tune with the needs of the citizens utilizing Harlem City Park,” said Couch. “There is a natural human desire to want to use it and maintain assets under our own ownership. Owning Harlem City Park and wanting that well used and well maintained is too strong a correlation to ignore.”
The commissioner expressed gratitude to the county for its cosmetic maintenance projects at the park, such as installing automatic door locks on restrooms, pressure washing the playground equipment and bleachers and repairing asphalt on the walking trail.
Couch also provided an estimate of annual maintenance costs based on costs that have been incurred by Columbia County as its crews worked on the park. Annual staffing expenses would amount to $25,000, manual repairs and maintenance $2,800, annual custodial supplies $1,500 and the yearly power bill would be $18,500, according to these estimates.
Councilman John Thigpen asked whether the county would be interested in allowing some ball games to occasionally be played at the Harlem park’s field rather than Patriot’s Park or other fields in the area.
John Luton, county director of community services, affirmed that this could be possible if the city preferred. Luton also noted, however, that generally fewer Harlem children play ball than those from other areas in the county, such as the city of Grovetown and that the numbers would be too few to build a league.
Mayor Roxanne Whitaker remarked that this was not due to lack of interest on the part of Harlem kids and their families.
“When you schedule their games at Riverside [Park], and it’s at six o’clock, the majority of their families work till 4:00, get home at 4:30 or 5:00, they cannot get to those games, so it’s virtually impossible for them to participate,” Whitaker said.
Luton acknowledged this consideration, responding that, in the last few years, the county has taken a “regional approach” to assigning where games are played.
“We’ll have leagues based out of Riverside, and leagues based out of Patriots Park, our two biggest hubs,” he said. “So, at the very least, it eliminates traveling all the way to Riverside. So the Patriots league would play against Harlem, or Lonnie Morris [Park], which is a little bit closer. It’s been very successful.”
Deputy County Manager Glenn Kennedy noted that any such arrangement could be very possible, but would have to be coordinated through open communication between the city of Harlem and the county. The council members agreed.
Whitaker stated that the beginning of next year may be too soon, as that’s when the city’s budget starts and it has not yet prepared for additional public works. Commissioner Couch said she would be mindful of the council’s agendas for the sake of proposing another date.
In the same meeting, the council also gave special recognition to city firefighters Robert Smith, Randy Rossi, Danny Rollins, Samuel Maddix and Logan McCoy for helping deliver Nicholas Ainslie, the child of Loren Ainslie, on July 6.
Skyler Q. Andrews is a staff reporter for The Augusta Press. Reach him at skyler@theaugustapress.com.
