Kayla's Playground expansion takes an ugly turn politically

In what is likely to become a cornerstone of someone's future political campaign in 2017, the Council's decision to table a plan to install up to 12 tables at Kayla's Playground has turned personal and petty. From the perspective of this writer, who acknowledges the journalistic and media background of the blogger stirring this unnecessary controversy, it is an attempt to create two issues: Creating anger towards people not sharing his personal political views or that of his friend, Mayor Olson, and creating more attention and draws to his new website after FranklinNOW shut down its blog section earlier this month.

The topic of controversy is the blogger's notion that the Council "rejected" a 12 table expansion at Kayla's Playground, which has become the sole major civic accomplishment of Mayor Olson's tenure since taking office in 2014. The "rejection", in fact, was a decision by the Council to table the plans until city staff can come back, presumably at the next meeting, with more details on options and costs.

Several aldermen, including the district alderman in which the playground is located, cited concerns from several neighbors about the expansion, and had reservations over how many concrete (not wooden) picnic tables would be necessary for the site, and if permanent, more costly concrete tables are the only option. There was a motion to amend the plans to reduce the number of tables from 12 to 6. This should be viewed in most political discussions as a solid compromising solution. Instead, the Council ended up splitting the vote 3-3, in what residents should view as a prediction for many future votes to come.

When the original motion, for the 12 tables, came back to a vote, that also only grabbed a 3-3 vote. This would make logical sense, since 3 aldermen voted to trim the number of tables to 6 in the amendment vote previously.

Because of this, however, supporters of Mayor Olson, and his blogging ally in particular, decided to criticize the aldermen who were trying to address concerns of the neighborhood along with being fiscally conservative, not the aldermen failing to compromise and getting at least 6 tables approved for the handicapped.

This continues a disappointing trend in Franklin politics since Mayor Olson took office, where any project or discussion, or even a desire to compromise, can turn into nasty mudslinging in an attempt to keep the public supportive of a Mayor who so far has had immense struggles in trying to land landmark economic development projects in a city where the majority of residents wish to see more growth in retail and commercial projects.