Dear editor: It is a sad day when a public park named for one of Putnam’s first Black county commissioners sits unwanted in the heart of an historic Black neighborhood. The county commissioners, on a flimsy legal technicality, have disowned a park they have overseen for 15 years and want to hand it to the city.
City Council, who transferred ownership of the park to the county in 2007, refuses to take it.
Many Eatonton Messenger readers may have never visited Jimmy Davis Park. It once thrived, hosting baseball games, church picnics and charity events. Over the past decade the park became a political football, leaving it stripped of staff and equipment, and prone to vandalism.
Commissioner Daniel Brown, in whose district the park sits, blames residents. At a recent meeting, Commissioner Brown described filling his truck with park trash, and an endless cycle of repairs and petty destruction.
Commissioner Brown inadvertently highlights the real problem. If Jimmy Davis Park had—as in its heyday—on-site staff, we would see a virtuous circle of care, use and respect, and an end to the vicious circle lamented by the county. Staffed Oconee Springs Park and the Poole Recreation Center do not suffer this way.
The county commissioners are rightly proud of our recreation department, but don’t like to talk about Jimmy Davis Park. This is a failure of leadership.
The two contenders for County Commissioner chair this November—Commissioner Bill Sharp and write-in candidate Charles Trumbo—let’s hear your views on the Jimmy Davis Park debacle. Flush with American Rescue Plan funds, the county has an opportunity to invest in a next-generation facility.
If Jimmy Davis was still alive he would not have let it come to this. Let’s not fail him.
Richard Garrett