Old School House should be close to the road in Heritage Park
There seems to be an effort to locate the old Central School House in a freaking cul-de-sac in Heritage Park. William White is under pressure from Melvin Davis to come to a decision where to locate the old structre, donated several years ago. It has to be moved soon to maintain some sort of historic integrity. I think it should be at the front of the park.
Don Oliver of the Oconee County Parks and Recreation Department wants to put the schoolhouse in the back of the park down a slope away from Highway 441. Members of the Historic Sites and Tourism committee want to see the park located closer to the road so it can be seen from 441. It does not have to be at the side of the road, but at least in some sight distance from the highway. There is alread another historic structure at Heritage Park and there would be no way these would be located right next to each other at the end of a cul de sac. There are already way too many cul de sacs in Oconee County as it is right now. Oliver also wants to put an amphitheater near the road, when it should be past the other house and where he wants to put the old School House.
There is a usuable foundation and slab where there was an old dog facility much closer to the road where Albert Hale would be proud to place the school so all Oconee County and see from the highway. An amphitheater should be built away from the highway so as to preserve the acoustic integrity of any performance. The school should be put well within the sight lines and accesibility of many of the elderly members of the county who could recall attending the facility.
I know a lot about the Oconee County Recreation Department both as a parent and a former employee. I think John Gentry does an outstanding job, but I believe he is still deployed in Iraq. I think it is well past the time where he should be brought home before things get worse at the recreation department. Many good people have worked and met long hours to let something get thrown together at the last second here poorly for all parties concerned. There are lots of decisions to be made about the future of Heritage Park and the oddly named Oconee Community Complex across from Herman C. Michael. Some one offered to pay $10,000 toward an aquatic center at the new park only if that were the first thing built. Instead we have an ugly war memorial looking like something from the Stalinst era Soviet Union. We could have something warm and beautful, and the plans are on the table for such an edifice already. Let's not make another mistake in our parks and recreation facilities.
This message is from Ann Hester-I am sorry I could not attend the last meeting (I am in New York) to update you on the meeting that Alex Murawski and I attended with the group representing Heritage Park. We were there for over two hours and had a productive conversation with the group. They were very receptive to our ideas and would like more input from the group. We discussed the Historical Society as being the support organization for the development of the Historical Village including, building sites and educational programs. I think this is a wonderful opportunity and focus for the Historical Society and we should persue this relationship.In my opinion and theirs - what we need to do as a group is get together and write a proposal stating our vision for the Historical portion of the park and present it to the group. The people involved in the development of the park are more than willing to work with us if they had a written proposal from the Historical Society.
They will be supplying us with a copy of the site drawings which will include elevations and more details.The site drawings do show the Central School House towards the back of the park and not visiable from the Road. It was explained to us that the County had already hired a designer and site maps were drawn and approved. At this point they can not change the site for the Central School house. The cabin and Schoolhouse stay as drawn and approved. They are more than willing to work with us and want our guidance with future buildings, sites and possible programs and events.Agiain - I think it is important to develop this relationship and work with Heritage Park by writing a very detailed proposal from the Historical Society. I am more than willing to work with a committee to develop a long term plan, write the proposal and establish a working relationship with the group at Heritage Park-Ann Hester
The next is from Peggy Sommner of the Oconee County Historic Society:
Hi,I thought I'd give you all a quick update about what went on at the meeting last night.We spent most of our time discussing the current plans for Heritage Park and the consensus was that it was not what we would like to see them do with the area. We are working on arranging some meetings toexpress our disappointment and to explain what we thing would bebetter. Please keep your eyes out for future e-mails because there maybe a time when we need as many people as we can get together to back upthose who are talking. We also briefly discussed getting a group of us together to string popcorn etc. to decorate a tree similar to what they would have had atCentral School House for our float in the Christmas parade. We haven'tfigured out a time or place yet but keep watching her for an invitationto come help.Peggy
And one more from today
Hi, Brent called last night. He is working on a letter to Melvin Davis outlining what we would like to see happen at Heritage Park. He asked that we back him up with a bunch of e-mails explaining what we would like to see and do with the park. It will work best if you put it into your own words but here is a summary of the discussion at the last meeting when we were looking atthe drawings to give you an idea of what concerns us. There is a huge parking lot in the front with trees, a cul-de-sac traffic circle with Central School house on it not far from the cabin and a pond. We had been talking about putting the school house closerto the front, using the area where the pond is as a farm site/field for kids to walk across to the farm house to get the feeling of walking toand from school.
We all agreed that it looked like an MPD rather than an unique park. There looks like there is little room to add anything else unless we want to crowd them alltogether like in a current subdivision. If we do that we will end up a bunch of historical buildings with very little context of what things used to be like in Oconee County. Please do this right away.
The most recent issue of the Oconee Enterprise sounded like they want to move the school house before the beginning of the new year so we do not have much time to get them to reconsider.
Peggy
ps. Melvin's e-mail address is: mdavis@oconee.ga.us
Don Oliver of the Oconee County Parks and Recreation Department wants to put the schoolhouse in the back of the park down a slope away from Highway 441. Members of the Historic Sites and Tourism committee want to see the park located closer to the road so it can be seen from 441. It does not have to be at the side of the road, but at least in some sight distance from the highway. There is alread another historic structure at Heritage Park and there would be no way these would be located right next to each other at the end of a cul de sac. There are already way too many cul de sacs in Oconee County as it is right now. Oliver also wants to put an amphitheater near the road, when it should be past the other house and where he wants to put the old School House.
There is a usuable foundation and slab where there was an old dog facility much closer to the road where Albert Hale would be proud to place the school so all Oconee County and see from the highway. An amphitheater should be built away from the highway so as to preserve the acoustic integrity of any performance. The school should be put well within the sight lines and accesibility of many of the elderly members of the county who could recall attending the facility.
I know a lot about the Oconee County Recreation Department both as a parent and a former employee. I think John Gentry does an outstanding job, but I believe he is still deployed in Iraq. I think it is well past the time where he should be brought home before things get worse at the recreation department. Many good people have worked and met long hours to let something get thrown together at the last second here poorly for all parties concerned. There are lots of decisions to be made about the future of Heritage Park and the oddly named Oconee Community Complex across from Herman C. Michael. Some one offered to pay $10,000 toward an aquatic center at the new park only if that were the first thing built. Instead we have an ugly war memorial looking like something from the Stalinst era Soviet Union. We could have something warm and beautful, and the plans are on the table for such an edifice already. Let's not make another mistake in our parks and recreation facilities.
This message is from Ann Hester-I am sorry I could not attend the last meeting (I am in New York) to update you on the meeting that Alex Murawski and I attended with the group representing Heritage Park. We were there for over two hours and had a productive conversation with the group. They were very receptive to our ideas and would like more input from the group. We discussed the Historical Society as being the support organization for the development of the Historical Village including, building sites and educational programs. I think this is a wonderful opportunity and focus for the Historical Society and we should persue this relationship.In my opinion and theirs - what we need to do as a group is get together and write a proposal stating our vision for the Historical portion of the park and present it to the group. The people involved in the development of the park are more than willing to work with us if they had a written proposal from the Historical Society.
They will be supplying us with a copy of the site drawings which will include elevations and more details.The site drawings do show the Central School House towards the back of the park and not visiable from the Road. It was explained to us that the County had already hired a designer and site maps were drawn and approved. At this point they can not change the site for the Central School house. The cabin and Schoolhouse stay as drawn and approved. They are more than willing to work with us and want our guidance with future buildings, sites and possible programs and events.Agiain - I think it is important to develop this relationship and work with Heritage Park by writing a very detailed proposal from the Historical Society. I am more than willing to work with a committee to develop a long term plan, write the proposal and establish a working relationship with the group at Heritage Park-Ann Hester
The next is from Peggy Sommner of the Oconee County Historic Society:
Hi,I thought I'd give you all a quick update about what went on at the meeting last night.We spent most of our time discussing the current plans for Heritage Park and the consensus was that it was not what we would like to see them do with the area. We are working on arranging some meetings toexpress our disappointment and to explain what we thing would bebetter. Please keep your eyes out for future e-mails because there maybe a time when we need as many people as we can get together to back upthose who are talking. We also briefly discussed getting a group of us together to string popcorn etc. to decorate a tree similar to what they would have had atCentral School House for our float in the Christmas parade. We haven'tfigured out a time or place yet but keep watching her for an invitationto come help.Peggy
And one more from today
Hi, Brent called last night. He is working on a letter to Melvin Davis outlining what we would like to see happen at Heritage Park. He asked that we back him up with a bunch of e-mails explaining what we would like to see and do with the park. It will work best if you put it into your own words but here is a summary of the discussion at the last meeting when we were looking atthe drawings to give you an idea of what concerns us. There is a huge parking lot in the front with trees, a cul-de-sac traffic circle with Central School house on it not far from the cabin and a pond. We had been talking about putting the school house closerto the front, using the area where the pond is as a farm site/field for kids to walk across to the farm house to get the feeling of walking toand from school.
We all agreed that it looked like an MPD rather than an unique park. There looks like there is little room to add anything else unless we want to crowd them alltogether like in a current subdivision. If we do that we will end up a bunch of historical buildings with very little context of what things used to be like in Oconee County. Please do this right away.
The most recent issue of the Oconee Enterprise sounded like they want to move the school house before the beginning of the new year so we do not have much time to get them to reconsider.
Peggy
ps. Melvin's e-mail address is: mdavis@oconee.ga.us
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