Aragon looking to clear basketball goals off streets
Many people who drive down Aragon Road have found themselves in the following position: local youth are enjoying an afternoon or evening pickup game of basketball, and are focused more on scoring than cars speeding by. Sometimes, according to several city officials, they even block the streets.
An effort is underway now to do something to move those players from the street and into local park spaces after the Aragon City Council approved spending of $10,000 to build a half basketball court with an “indestructible” goal, according to building inspector and code enforcement officer Josh Ozment.
The topic opened discussions during t he council’s work session last Thursday, providing Hunter Spinks the opportunity to ask a pertinent question: where will the youth go if they don’t have places to play in the street?
“There are three or four basketball goals in visible sight of my house right now, and whether they’re in the road or not there are kids playing on them, and you’re going to take them on down and replace them with one basketball court at the end of the road,” Spinks said. “Now I don’t know and I haven’t measured, but my kids and the other kids don’t appear to be playing on a 10 foot goal.”
Spinks also questioned the tagging of basketball goals on Aragon Road, but Ozment said those red tags were just warnings, not any official sanction or citation on the part of the city. Additionally, his hopes are to provide more spaces in the future for basketball courts.
He was also concerned about how long goals would really last, and if the city would be paying for more in the future.
Ozment will use the help of a temporary worker for a single day this week — weather pending — to put up the new basketball goal and smooth out the half court.
Future plans for how to deal with youth playing in the street — a problem that Aragon Police Chief Mark Riley cited was a safety concern for the city, drivers and parents who have children who play pickup games in the roadway — are still underway.
The $10,000 to pay for the materials is coming from the city’s Special Asset fund, which has been used for several projects and is now down to $160,000.
One item that won’t be moving forward immediately is an ordinance governing animal tethering within the city limits. Spinks cited previous concerns over being able to keep dogs outdoors for those pet owners without a fence full time, and though he understood the concern of local citizens about animal cruelty, didn’t believe it was right to put the ordinance into place.
It died as an issue before the council this month for lack of a motion to take up a vote on the ordinance.
The council can decide at a later date to return to the issue.
Additionally, the council also approved a measure to remember every Sept. 29 in the future in honor of Det. Kristen Hearne with the Polk County Police Department. Hearne, who was shot and killed in the line of duty at the end of September, was married to Lt. Matt Hearne of the Aragon Police Department, and was a fixture at city hall.
Chief Mark Riley asked the city and got cooperation to get a resolution in place officially designating the day, flying flags at half staff in the future, and placing a small plaque inside the Police Department’s day room to honor her memory.
Here’s some other brief news from Aragon from t his month’s council meeting:
Granite plaque placed
on mill pond bridge
A number of years ago, the City of Aragon placed a plaque on the side of the mill pond bridge to honor a former mayor who had served during the mid 1980s.
In the intervening years, the plaque was stolen and now it has been replaced with something that Mayor Garry Baldwin hopes no one will want.
The new granite marker to honor Mayor Henry Shepard — who served from 1985 to 1987 — was installed in past weeks, Baldwin said.
“I was glad that we could replace it was something more permanent, and hope that it will remain to honor Mayor Shepard for years to come,” he said.
Aragon seeks to get back franchise fees
An agreement between the Georgia Municipal Association and Aragon was approved by the council and will only cost $200 for the rest of the year for the city to find out if they are owed money by companies who pay franchise fees to operate in the city.
Baldwin told the council the $200 was only part of an annual $ 1,000 fee paid to get GMA to seek out whether Aragon is owed additional funds from utilities who charge fees to customers for power, phone, internet and cable, among others.
“They’re going to tell us for the $200 whether we can get more money or not, and then we can decide if we want to spend the additional $1,000 to have them do the work to get it back,” Baldwin said.