MIDLAND, Texas — Midland City Council voted against signing an agreement with the Quality of Place Conservancy to renovate and manage Hogan Park.
Now, Mayor Lori Blong is focused on moving forward but is disappointed in the outcome of Tuesday's vote.
"I think that we have an opportunity here to move forward, and the vote has been taken and today's a new day, so we do go forward, but I do believe it’s important to recognize that we lost something in voting this down, and I’m sad that my fellow councilmembers decided to do that," said Blong.
Blong explained that now donors will have to make some decisions.
"The conservancy had successfully raised $28.5 million towards this project, totally separate and apart from what the city has established for the $10 million, so what we did effectively with the vote that was taken, we walked away from some of those philanthropic dollars, and I believe that that money, because of the way it was allocated to Hogan park through the conservancy, now that money has to go back to those donors and they have to decide what they want to do," said Blong. "But the donors have the custody of those dollars, and so I don’t know how many of those donors will be interested in investing with the city on the Hogan Park project."
The $28.5 million will now go back to those donors. However, the $10 million from the city has already been getting used for renovations. Half of that money has gone towards renovating the Bill Williams Sports Complex at Hogan.
"The city actually never gave any money to the conservancy," said Blong. "The city maintained the $10 million and started spending on that $10 million to renovate the Bill Williams Sports Complex. So, roughly half of the $10 million has been spent on renovations at the Bill Williams Sports Complex at Hogan Park. The city will continue to pay out that amount and build out a phase of the project, but there is not a plan or a funding mechanism at time to build out the rest of Hogan Park as it was conceived."
With no plan or funding for the remainder of the park at this time, Mayor Blong says now they will need to come together and decide next steps for it.
"Midland is gonna have to make decisions on how we want to spend our dollars, you know we have a lot of needs in this community for infrastructure, for roads, and water and so many other things, even schools that are separate from the City," said Blong. "We have to decide how we’re going to allocate our taxpayers' dollars, and I think to say no to $28.5 million of philanthropy jeopardizes some of those other projects because we need to make good decisions with taxpayer dollars."
"Hogan Park is an important part of our community, and it is a significant economic driver that brings in sports and revenue to our community," said Blong. "I really wanted to see this project pass because I believe it is to the benefit to our community. I believe that it is to the benefit of community for people who can't afford to go to Frisco to play in different sports tournaments. We need to have that access here, and I'm saddened that we gave up a pretty quick opportunity to have some of those facilities available to our community."