“I’m going outside to slit my wrists,” I informed my editor last week. “I give up.” I had just received a press release that should be sent to everyone who has ever voted for a county bond package or anyone who might consider voting for one in the future. It was quite enlightening.
It seems that while county commissioners were whining about how desperately they needed more money for school renovation and construction over the last five years, architects were busy designing Ray’s Splash Planet. While the county commission was ramming a 15 to 25 percent county tax increase down our throats last year, construction was underway on, you guessed it, Ray’s Splash Planet.
Whether you like it or not, if you own land or a business in Mecklenburg County, you’ll be paying the $6.4 million bill for the 29,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art water park that was a joint venture between Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation Department and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools.
According to the press release, the one-of-a-kind water park will provide county residents year-round access to a variety of fun-filled aquatic features including a beach-like entry to the pool; four slides from a multi-level interactive playground; a winding, two-story tube slide; a 250-foot lazy river; super-soaking squirters; a vortex pool with a current; lap training lanes, a party room and much more.
“The facility promises to be a favorite venue for children’s birthday parties, corporate events and family get-togethers,” the release gushes.
After driving by the Planet, which is located — guess where? uptown, on Sycamore Street adjoining Irwin Avenue School, I must give the commission credit. They’ve really outdone themselves with our money and they certainly spared no expense. The thing is no bricks-and-mortar government facility like the schools our children attend. (Except those who go to school in trailers, of course.)
Planners strived to incorporate the natural flow of Irwin Creek, which winds around the facility, into the building design, which features curved interior walls and almost no right angles. And get this. The building was designed to capture the optimal amount of natural light with floor-to-ceiling windows the press release describes as a “soaring wall of glass.” They put the aerobics rooms and the “cardiovascular deck” with weight machines on the second floor so folks can bask in the sunlight while they work out.
That is, if they can afford to work out. Don’t think that since you, the taxpayer, forked over the money for this thing that they’re going to just let you in for free. The price of admission is $5 for kids and $7 for adults, way out of the reach of a single mother looking to keep her four kids out of trouble during the summer. Of course, substantial discounts are now available for corporations, churches and other groups that purchase blocks of advance tickets. . .So perhaps the Welfare Mothers’ Croquet Club could hold a bake sale and chip in to buy their own block of tickets.
By now you’re probably wondering how you could possibly have missed this monstrosity on the ballot when you voted for school and land bonds. You didn’t. But when you voted for the bonds, the ones the Charlotte Chamber-ish bond campaign hucksters guilt-tripped you into with their do-it-for-the-children signs, you voted for Ray’s Splash Planet, too, without knowing it. That’s because when you vote to approve say, $100 million worth of school or land bonds, you’re really voting to approve $167 million in bond money. Once the original $100 million is issued, state law allows commissioners to vote to issue an additional two-thirds of the original bond amount without voter approval for just about anything they want. That’s how commissioners got away with using bond money to fund the splash park, which they voted to approve in 1997, without putting it on the ballot. Obviously, longtime county politicians like Parks Helms, Darrel Williams and Becky Carney, who sat on the commission back when the Planet was approved, think they’re smarter than you are. They knew you’d never buy into the for-the-children gambit if they had put something like Ray’s Splash Planet on the ballot. They knew you’d buck their endless tax increases if you really knew how they spent your money. So they billed you for another uptown booster attraction on the sly. In the meantime, more and more kids are learning their three R’s in trailers.
So this fall, they want voters to approve another $223 million school bond package, ostensibly for new schools in growing suburban areas and repairs to inner-city schools. The fact that the county manager recommended against the new bonds because the county already has nearly $400 million available in approved but unspent bond money is apparently irrelevant to these people. They couldn’t spend it all over the next two years if they wanted to. So why do they want it now? It’s politics 101. Because it’s an election year, funding for inner city schools can be used as a rallying cry to bring voters, and in particular minority voters, to the polls to vote for the bonds — and for them.
For the children? Ha!
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2002.
