HOW WE SEE IT: Advocates Must Plant Seeds Of Cooperation

Thursday, May 2, 2013

The good news? Residents of Fayetteville and the surrounding area have embraced the lands around Lake Fayetteville as a place for healthy pursuits, recreational fun and botanical beauty.

The bad news? Anytime varied interests essentially adopt the same property for their activities sooner or later there will be conflict.

That’s where the people, and thus the leadership of government in Fayetteville, find themselves lately as the Botanical Garden of the Ozarks seeks to firm up its plans for next-level development.

the gardens today represents about one-tenth of the original acreage involved when the city and botanical garden entered into a lease back in 1997. That was the culmination of years of hard work by volunteers, and the start of many more efforts ahead. Advocates devoted themselves to development of a long-term strategy to build a local amenity cross-pollinated with tourist attraction. Even at the gardens’ genesis, organizers predicted the project would be decades in the making.

Leaders of the botanical garden now want to refine the master plan for its development and that needs City Council approval. The conflict arises from the fact cycling enthusiasts, working with Fayetteville Parks and Recreation, poured many man-hours and dollars into improving the “soft surface” trail from Veterans Park to the Botanical Garden, where a two-tenths of a mile section flows into land the garden wants to enclose, eventually, as part of its fee area.

The botanical garden irked some trail users, and surprised city leaders, with a recent plan that would have quickly shut off public access to the small, but important, section of the trail.

Gardens leaders backed off that idea, no doubt freshly aware of the emotions the proposal churned up among other users of the outstanding lands around Lake Fayetteville.

It’s worth remembering Fayetteville has invested a lot of money into the Botanical Gardens of the Ozarks. First came $750,000 from the council as both proverbial and literal seed money. The Fayetteville Advertising and Promotion commission has likewise spent hundreds of thousands of dollars there.

And we’re confident all parties can be satisfied, eventually. With all the city-owned acreage around Lake Fayetteville, it’s entirely reasonable to envision a new section of trail at another location. Stakeholders invested in the lake and its surroundings will soon meet to see what the possibilities are. One might wish such collaboration could have been the first effort, but it’s never too late to see a cooperative effort bloom.

We’re also reminded that whatever the council and gardens officials agree to in the master plan will likely be years, if not decades, in the making. So there should be ample time, as long as nobody acts without regard to other interested parties, to replace the trail section in a responsible manner that meets the needs of everyone involved.

We were surprised, but pleased, to hear one garden official say the organization will pay to relocate the trail section. That seems appropriate since its existence should have not shocked any of them. With cooperative attitudes, this episode can be weeded out and everyone can get back to enjoying the natural and planted areas most everyone is so proud to have in Fayetteville.

Opinion, Pages 5 on 05/02/2013