Council picks plan over budget for PS Jones park

Published 3:57 pm Tuesday, April 25, 2017

The P.S. Jones Alumni Association got its wish granted Monday night.

Washington’s City Council unanimously voted to build a restroom facility at P.S. Jones Memorial Park at a cost of $56,100. The city budgeted $50,000 for the project.

The council reviewed two options. Option A called for building a 24-foot-by-20-foot-8-inch facility at a cost of $56,100. The contractor would be DB&H Commercial Contractors, according to a city document. Option B would cost the city $49,838 to build a 24-foot-by-15-foot-8-inch facility. The contractor for that option is Paul Woolard Construction, according to the document.

Ray Northern, president of the alumni group, asked the council to vote for Option A because it includes windows and is more aesthetically pleasing. Northern said the facility would be noticeable because it would be located at the main entrance to the park at the intersection of North Bridge and West 11th streets and easily seen from the Beaufort County Boys & Girls Club and Beebe Memorial Park.

“We saw the two bids that were in. We came to you this evening to appeal to you to allow us to have the A bathroom with the windows in it. The front of it looks very good,” Northern said. “We would like to know we’ve left a legacy here that this bathroom represents not only P.S. Jones but that it would represent the community.”

Mayor Mac Hodges said he supports Option A because it is the better-looking option when it comes to a restroom facility at the main gateway to the park, adding it is more impressive looking than Option B.

Councilman Doug Mercer said he supported Option A, but he noted the city budgeted $50,000 for the project. “We need to know where the extra $6,000 is coming from,” he said. Councilman Richard Brooks, who also supported Option A, suggested the city use $6,100 of the money it cut from outside agencies in the upcoming budget to fully fund the project, but that suggestion was not heeded.

City officials decided to look elsewhere in the city budget to find the $6,100 to fully fund the project.

The restroom facility would be similar to those at the Todd Maxwell baseball complex on West Third Street.

The project is in the city’s capital-improvements plan at an estimated cost of $50,000.

The Kate B. Reynolds Foundation gave Beaufort County Schools $145,000 to build a playground and shelter at P.S. Jones Memorial Park. A previously awarded $55,000 grant from the trust has been earmarked to pay for a concrete walking trail around the park property. The city committed to building restroom facilities that would serve P.S. Jones Memorial Park and the adjacent Beebe Memorial Park.

P.S. Jones Memorial Park is named for Peter Simon Jones, a Washington educator and for whom the former P.S. Jones High School was named. Jones served at the school from 1927 to 1949. Washington Colored High School’s name was changed in 1950 to honor Jones, former principal of the school.

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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