County clarifies library and parks division in SPLOST VII

SPLOST VII's $22 million for a new library and parks and rec goes about 2/3 for the library and 1/3 for parks and rec, and the latter doesn't all go to parks and rec at Five Points, according to a mysterious red-letter note that has sprung up on the Lowndes County website.

The front page of lowndescounty.com has sprouted this undated and unsigned clarification under the SPLOST VII heading:

Exhibit A (Please note that the $22 million proposed by Lowndes County for the Library and Parks & Recreation, represents a division of approximately $14.5 million for the Library and approximately $7.5 million for Parks & Recreation. In addition, the $7.5 million proposed for Parks & Recreation is not allocated for parks and improvements at the 5-Points site. Parks & Recreation will use these funds for improvements in other areas of the county.)

Exhibit A is the list of projects and estimated costs that includes this item:

payment of bond debt for acquisition and construction of and equipping a new library facility and parks and recreation facilities

$ 22,000,000

Can somebody explain why the new library and Parks and Rec were lumped together in the first place? At least the county is sort of trying to explain the difference now.

They didn't include the pie chart with their clarification.

I made the pie chart; took about

5 minutes to modify the old one and put it on the web. Somebody might want to check my arithmetic. By splitting parks and rec from the library as the county has noted, I came up with $9.35 million Parks and Rec total and $33.845 million total for buildings in SPLOST VII.

When Lowndes County wants people to know something, why can't it put a signed and dated press release with contact information on its website? Here's a press release How-To, one of many only a google away. And send that PR to interested news media? And maybe link that PR into a County Clerk's blog? Or a county facebook page? Or twitter? Or all of the above?

-jsq

PS: There's a collection of SPLOST VII documents and pie charts on the LAKE website.