Spring Park Update/Real Skinny on TMC:

Tuscumbia's Spring Park is in dire need of new management! It has long been mismanaged, thanks to years of bad budgeting and neglected upkeep. How many times should park visitors have to endure broken down / neglected attractions? In September Tuscumbia hosted the Oka Kapassa festival. This is an annual Native American festival held in Spring Park. During this year’s festival, park guests had to endure very poor restroom conditions. Days before the festival started Tuscumbia's Park Manager, was confronted about Spring Park’s unsightly restroom conditions.

The restrooms suffered from: backed-up toilets, broken/shot lighting fixtures, cobwebs, broken door hinges, and feces on the walls/toilets/floor. In addition, the women’s main entrance door is so swollen and warped that it cannot be closed for fear that it could get stuck and trap people inside the restroom. But no worries because the door also contains an enormous hole that a person could crawl through for escape. Mr. Kendrick’s solution to the restroom issues – just wash down the restrooms with a pressure washer. So how does this suffice for proper maintenance? Maybe his cleaning method also explains how the women's restroom door acquired (over time) the enormous hole. Water damage? 

But I digress! To add further insult, the newer public restrooms remained under lock and key during the entire festival. Meanwhile the City of Florence has been chomping at the bit to relocate the Oka Kapassa Festival to their side of the river. The motive - FESTIVALS BRING IN $$! It appears that our very own park manager could care less. Another embarrassing episode occurred this past weekend when a large church group from Albertville, Alabama visited Spring Park. They gathered at the park to view the water fountain show - however - the show never occurred. There were no announcements nor any signage to inform the visitors that indeed the water fountain is broken. (Yes everyone, it’s broken again!) The visiting church group returned to Albertville feeling very disappointed.

There are many more similar stories posted on Facebook, Yelp, and other social media sites with firsthand accounts from other out of town visitors. Even the parks’ most devoted visitors have noticed the mismanagement. Some of these citizens brought their concerns to Tuscumbia's Mayor, but to no avail. Yes... I know that a well known prosperous family could toss out a few thousand dollars and patch up the mess (again), but with further neglect it falls apart all over again. The source of the problem has always been grave neglect, mismanagement, and incompetence from our Park Manager, along with our Mayor - who’d rather spend a million plus dollars renovating City Hall so he can have a nice office. I think it's time to clean out Tuscumbia from the inside out for the sake of our park and our city.

Tuscumbia Muscrat

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From a reader:

The real reason TMC is closing is not because they are “not profitable”, as reported in the Times Daily. It is due to an internal power struggle between the infamous Joe Pampinto, our “distinguished” Muscle Shoals city counsel member, and TMC’s former, as of yesterday, department head, Randy Ray. Joe hated Randy so much that he starved TMC out to get rid of him. In January of this year Joe started outsourcing the work that TMC did for Constellium and force them to become “unprofitable”. Unfortunately, Joe has successfully unemployed 135 members of his community with this petty fight. Thanks Joe!! Hope the voters remember this. I have contacted Times Daily and WHNT and have yet to see this side of the story reported.

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Shoalanda