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CITY, PARK DISTRICT BEGIN TALKS

A pending exploration of the city of Carbondale and the Carbondale Park District merging their operations took a big step forward this week, but it's obvious plenty of work remains.

The city council and park district board of commissioners met jointly Monday evening to finally start work on the job voters mandated by referendum last spring: exploring options for how their operations might be combined into one.

Their much-delayed joint meeting, coming more than four months after the election, was largely about gathering public comments, and more than two-dozen citizens spoke on their concerns regarding park district facilities and operations.

Only one substantial conclusion was reached: Officials on both sides agreed to have the two entities' lawyers draft short-term renewals of leases for Tatum Heights and Turley parks, whose expiration first sparked the current conversation between the governing bodies.

"I think we will learn something by renegotiating these leases," Mayor Mike Henry said.

While the city owns the land on which most the city's parks are situated, it leases that land to the park district, which is charged with maintaining them. With the leases for Turley, Tatum Heights and Pyles Fork Creek having expired, the park district - still saddled with crippling bond debt from the construction of Hickory Ridge Golf Course, as well as a property tax cap that severely limits how it can gather revenue - sought renewal of the leases last year, along with a new, $150,000 annual stipend from the city to be used in maintaining them. Resulting conversations evolved into last spring's referendum, which saw more than 70 percent of voters endorse exploration of a merger.

This week's public comments often veered away from discussion of the possible merger and more toward defenses of particular facilities, among them the golf course and the LIFE Community Center. In response to many comments supporting the continued operation of the golf course, some officials pointed out that no one is proposing shuttering anything.

"That is not at all my intent," Councilman Jeff Doherty said. "We want to maximize the opportunities, maximize the assets we have."

Many commenters also expressed concern that should the two bodies merge, a future budgetary shortfall could see the city raiding park district money to help shore up other operations.

Mayor Henry and Carl Flowers, president of the park district's board of commissioners, both expressed satisfaction that the short-term renewal of the leases would serve as a positive first step in analyzing where the relationship between the two entities stands. The next steps in the process will involve continued discussions between the two governmental bodies, with some of those conversations possibly taking place at other venues throughout the city and with the assistance of a facilitator.

"I'd like to see us in every neighborhood," park Commissioner Carmen Suarez said.

Flowers, echoing previous comments from park Commissioner Jessica Sergeev, questioned whether the low voter turnout in last spring's election somehow dilutes the apparent level of public support for exploration expressed through the referendum.

"Just because 72 percent of the people who voted said yes, does that really represent the whole community?" Flowers asked.

Commissioner Jane Adams promptly responded by pointing out that the referendum garnered more votes than any candidate for local office did.

"If the referendum isn't representative, none of us are," Adams said to applause from those in attendance.

Henry quickly chimed in with support for Adams' comment.

"It was absolutely a pitiful election," Henry said. "I have no joy in winning. I really don't, because it was terrible. It really was."

Moving forward, officials on both sides expressed optimism that they were prepared to make progress.

Many said they needed more facts and figures to begin understanding the issues.

"We've got a long way to go, but I think we made a good first step," Councilman Tom Grant said.

Councilman Adam Loos stressed the importance of both sides acting in "good faith."

"We all need to keep an open mind as to what that outcome should be," Loos said. "If we come into this process immovably in favor of merger, or immovably opposed, that's not good faith."

Flowers said the evening's conversation marked a good beginning to the process.

"What we've done here tonight was a good first step," Flowers said. "It's going to be important that we have this same ability to move forward collegially without this becoming an adversarial sort of situation."