By Jeff Weinstein
The Athens City Council is expected to discuss the proposed street closing on Dul Averiett between Royal and Owen streets this coming Monday, March 28. If you want to be heard, I suggest you consider attending the City Council meeting. If you can’t make it, you might want to call City Hall and let them know how you feel. Here’s my top reasons why I’m in favor of the street closing. If you don’t agree, I’d like to hear your reasons that you are opposed.
1. Bruce Field is very much a part of the High School campus. We have football, soccer, band and even high school graduation at Bruce Field. Closing the street and making everything part of one campus just makes good sense from a safety and logistics point of view.
2. The safety of our students should be the number one priority other than providing a great (not good) education. We need to protect our students from traffic as well as from themselves as they are crossing streets which leads to the question, why are they crossing streets on the campus in the first place? There should not be any streets. Drivers saving a minute or two to get across town should not even be discussed in the same breath as the safety of students. I say protection of students from themselves – have you seen kids walk and text these days?
3. It is my understanding that emergency personnel have considered the street closing and have reached the conclusion that a closing would not cause any potential delays in either ambulance, fire or police need.
4. We talk about aesthetics and how a $60 million makeover is going to attract businesses to Athens and promote school spirit among the students. If that is still the rationale for why we voted in favor of the bond, we should be very excited about how the AHS campus will look after we bring the football field into the mix. Maybe I’m bragging, but it will begin to look like a true campus of higher education much like a college campus.
I think this is a great suggestion and hope the City Council agrees.