MidlandToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a letter published June 25 that questioned town's decision to replace 'heritage' stairs, which was in response to a story published June 23 titled 'Iconic Little Lake Park gardens, stairs getting facelift.'
Your letter's author was right about our collective desire to keep our beautiful park as historic as possible.
The full reconstruction project at the tiered garden and stairs in LLP is a 2023 project and is funded by reserves. We went to tender last year but the bids were far over budget. We then worked with the architect on simplifying the design and went to tender again and were successful in obtaining a contractor within budget.
The new design will feature one set of stairs in the middle of the new tiered gardens with lighting on the stairway and a new lookout spot at the top. The gardens will also be pollinator friendly.
Rebuilding what we had was simply not within our means while also trying to keep our costs and tax increases at or below the rate of inflation. Responsible use of tax money and living within our means drives our decision-making and just like what we're going through with the Rotary Stage and the roof, I'm happy we found compromises that allow us to move forward while also staying within our budgets.
Things were far less expensive to build and maintain decades ago and simply closing/demolishing this historical feature was not something we wanted for Midland so instead we found a way to re-construct it, keep the historic look and feel, make it safer with integrated lighting and choosing an attractive design with the intent that it will remain that way for decades to come.
Mayor Bill Gordon
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