Graham’s city council chambers overflowed its capacity Tuesday night – with community members spilling into an overflow area at city hall – due to a record number of people who attended the council’s meeting and unanimously, one by one, expressed their opposition to the council’s decision to relocate Sesquicentennial Park from the northwest corner of Court Square to a parking lot along West Elm Street.
The agenda for the council’s monthly meeting listed an action item, to consider awarding a contract for the “new park project design and construction” to Raleigh-based design and engineering firm Stewart, that was ultimately shelved after apparent statutory restrictions on relocation came to light later in the evening.
Initially, a nine-page proposal that mayor pro tem Ricky Hall presented last month, along with a sketch, had called for moving the park from the northwest corner of Court Square to a courtyard and parking lot behind the Graham Historical Museum at 135 West Elm Street…