FLORENCE PARKS & RECREATION DECORATES THE DUMPSTER

  

The lighting of the Christmas lights at Wilson Park in downtown Florence was scheduled for December 1st. Each year the display grows more beautiful with thousands of lights and displays. This year was no exception. There was a choir singing Christmas songs and of course a speech from Mayor Andy Betterton. From young to old, it brought out the Christmas spirit in all those who witnessed the event.

Unfortunately, this reporter recently learned of a practice by the maintenance crew that strings the lights that has brought out the Scrooge in me. A thread on a Facebook page regarding the attractions in the area at Christmas revealed a procedure by the maintenance department while taking down the displays that to me insured Bill Jordan truly deserved a lump of coal in his stocking this year. It was stated in a post by a reliable source that he was in the park during the time when the maintenance workers were removing the decorations and the lights. The poster made the remark to a worker: “I would hate to untangle all those lights” to which the maintenance worker said: “Oh, we don’t untangle them, we just cut them in to (sections) and throw them away.”

What a waste! Granted, it would require more labor time to properly take down the lights and store them until the next year. But the spirit of Christmas itself would lean toward saving the lights. At the very least, if the city did not want to take the time and effort to properly take down the lights, consider the expense and waste of destroying the lights each year and the expense of buying hundreds of new strings of lights each season. There are plenty of people who cannot afford the lights that would be more than willing to volunteer to unravel the Christmas lights if they could keep them. How about donating them to the different charitable organizations to give them out to those who could use some Christmas spirit? The maintenance supervisor should be required to wear a Grinch costume at the lighting ceremony every year until the city quits this wasteful practice! 

BAH HUMBUG!