Kingston Tennessee is a provincial little town in a most beautiful setting. It is blessed with water and scenery with the Emory and Clinch River confluence at the northern end and the Clinch and Tennessee River confluence at the southern end. Fort Southwest Point Park anchors the town at one end and very soon the Ladd Landing Greenway will provide the bookend to the north with the net cost to Kingston taxpayers being absolutely free.

Starting at Ladd Park at the Clinch and Emory confluence, the greenway carves its way through several micro habitats and a mature mixed hardwood forest. Except for the much discussed handrails on the bridge over Ladd Landing Boulevard and a few benches and such, the trail is complete. You may walk the entire trail right now, except for the bridge, and I encourage everyone to do just that. I have traveled it several times and seen something new every time I've gone. There is nowhere else in Roane County that you can walk into a deep forest on the comfort of a paved trail. The Ladd Landing Greenway is a gift that everyone in Kingston should enjoy and treasure from now on.

Now to read the Roane County News articles on the Greenway Trail you would think it is a boondoggle that will never be finished and that the Kingston Taxpayers have been robbed to build a road to nowhere. Nowhere in any of the articles has the RCN noted that the net cost of this project to Kingston Taxpayers is absolutely NOTHING!

Let's put the time frame in perspective by noting that this project was initiated by the Ladd Landing Development group in the early part of this century. 2001 is the date I have. All of the grants were written by that group with no cost to the City. The grant money was jeopardized time and again by the City's failure to come up with the small amount of matching money required or failure to commence the project in a timely manner. The few months delay at the end of this project is nothing compared to the decade of delay while waiting for the City to get going.

As for complaints about "taxpayer money" there are several points to remember. First, people come together and create cities and pay taxes for exactly this purpose. Everyone in Kingston owns part of this Greenway. It is accessible to everyone in Kingston, Roane County and the whole country, for that matter. It amazes me that people who like the taxpayer built five lane highway running in front of their private business begrudge spending a pittance of that same money on a park for everyone. Then there is the fact that over a half million dollars in land (That number is extremely conservative since that is about 70 acres in a development where a half acre lot is worth $40,000) was given to the city in order to cover its part of the matching funds required to receive the initial grant. And since additional grants were involved, and the City was squabbling over spending ten cents to get a dollar, the Ladd Group loaned the City of Kingston the funds needed to keep the project going. This loan is to be paid back only by the increase in property taxes generated by the development. If there is no increase in value then the loan becomes a donation. There is no existing tax revenue at stake where the City of Kingston is concerned, but some people still want to complain. Either way the net cost of the Greenway to the City of Kingston is ZERO!

Well, here we are and the Ladd Landing Greenway is here. Complaining about it is like saying your new mansion is ruined because they haven't put the door knob on the bathroom yet. This is silly and bad for the City of Kingston. This is a wonderful municipal project that hasn't cost the City a penny. I suggest the City Council stop complaining about something they are supposed to be responsible for managing and start patting themselves on the back for being in office at the time the City of Kingston receives this magnificent gift. Kingston deserves some good press. This is a great opportunity to show the world what a great place we have here. Let's do it!