By Jeremy Carroll
C & G Staff Writer

ROYAL OAK — City officials quashed the idea of selling dedicated parks after city administration put forth a proposal to attempt to sell three of them at the Oct. 6 City Commission meeting.

If the city had moved forward with the sale of the parks, they would have needed to get voter approval to divest a dedicated public park. On the list recommended by the city administration were Bassett Park, Rotary Park and the eastern edge of Realtors Park.

“I don’t think any vote would be successful,” said Commissioner Carlo Ginotti. “I have no interest in selling a city park. So I think any time moving in that direction would be a huge waste of your time and our time.”

Commissioner Terry Drinkwine, also a member of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, agreed, saying he wanted to put the whole idea of selling parks to bed.

“I think it’s a terrible time to divest,” he said. “With this economy, it doesn’t make sense.”

The sale was defeated, with Drinkwine, Ginotti, Mayor Jim Ellison and Gary Lelito voting to not move forward with the potential sale, and Mike Andrzejak, Stephen Miller and Chuck Semchena voting the other way.

After the idea of selling the parks was defeated, Andrzejak still pushed for the sale of Bassett Park, located on Campbell Road just north of 11 Mile Road.

“This truly can be classified as underutilized park, and I’m interested in taking bids to see what type of interest we would have into that park,” he said.

The idea met with resistance from the same four that defeated the other sale idea.

“This might not be your neighborhood park, but it’s someone’s neighborhood park,” Drinkwine said.

Ultimately, it too was defeated.

During the meeting, several residents spoke out against the sale of parks. William Allen said he didn’t think enough money could be raised by the sale to justify putting them on the market.

“These are really tough economical times, and I wonder if today is the best time to sell property?” he asked.

Kathy Condit said she thought it would be a poor decision to take away parks from the community, including one by her home, Lawson Park. That park was one of 15 that were included when commissioners did a drive-by tour on Sept. 30.

“One of the reasons why I moved to Royal Oak was because of the small park-like neighborhoods,” she said.

City Manager Tom Hoover said after the park tour was announced, they received a lot of phones calls, e-mails and letters on the issue.

The city did move forward in an attempt to sell three lots of city-owned property that were not parks. Those are parking lot spaces at 14 Mile and Rochester roads, and two near Woodward and York Street.

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Carroll at jcarroll@candgnews.com or at (586) 279-1110.