This weekend, when reflecting on the Council’s denial of the Hogan Park project, it seemed right to think about Midland’s premier park and recreation facilities. It seemed appropriate to think that the Hogan Park project wasn’t about conservancies or control – not from a donor’s perspective – but budgets that are the difference in just another park or a signature park for Midland. 

My thought is that foundations and oil companies wanted to fund this project and run it through a conservancy because they had real worries that a park left without guaranteed expenditures would become, well, just like every other park in Midland. And that wasn’t a good thing.

If I had to guess, that is why the downtown conservancy was formed, because there wasn’t any certainty that the City of Midland – and specifically its elected leaders – could be trusted to provide the money to guarantee a project would be funded like comparable projects are elsewhere.

Funders were right with the downtown park, and they were right to have the same concerns with Hogan. There are no examples of the elected leaders making sure parks projects are left to succeed with a guaranteed budget.

To be fair, there aren’t many people inside our community holding our elected leaders’ feet to the fire. There haven’t been many people making parks and recreation spending as a No. 1 item of a political campaign. There haven’t been overflowing calls for increasing budgets and the tax rates to make sure Midland’s parks can be held to a higher standard.

The fact is Midland’s council decided otherwise when presented this opportunity to create a park that was favored by a contingent that included Tim Dunn of all people. But they had their reasons, and we move on.