Graham commission member questions handling of West Elm park meeting

A fight over Graham’s proposed West Elm Street park has shifted from design to process, and that may matter as much as the park itself. If the March 24 Historic Resources Commission hearing was mishandled, the city’s plan to move Sesquicentennial Park from Court Square to 129 West Elm Street could face delay, legal challenge or a do-over.

Ben Beushausen, one of the commission’s own members, emailed Graham planner Jonathan Buckley on March 25 and said he saw “some definite issues” with the previous day’s meeting. His concerns centered on the way HRC Chairman Zipporah Clark-Baldwin handled the hearing and whether the commission followed the right procedure while considering the park application for the lot between Roasted Coffee Depot and the law office of Tony DiLello, across from The Alamance News.

The city had filed the Certificate of Appropriateness application on March 17 through assistant city manager Aaron Holland. A notice for the March 24 special public hearing at 6 p.m. at City Hall described it as a quasi-judicial hearing. At the end of that hearing, the HRC approved the park plan, changed the pavilion roof from a pitched design to a flat roof, and told the owner of 131 West Elm Street that no mural would be painted on her building without permission.

The procedural questions did not end there. On March 25, publisher Tom Boney Jr. challenged the legality of the hearing and the city’s notice and procedure, but the commission said he lacked standing. That made the dispute about more than the park layout or a single parking lot. It became a test of how carefully Graham’s advisory boards are following the rules when they act on projects tied to downtown redevelopment.

The stakes were already high before the hearing. Graham City Council voted 3-2 on March 10 to adopt a third version of the relocation plan, after two earlier versions of the park proposal had already circulated. Planning director Cameron West wrote on March 5 that if the city did not use the park grant, “we will lose them,” referring to the funding tied to the project.

Former mayor Jennifer Talley said she supports the council’s decision, but wishes there were a way to keep Sesquicentennial Park where it is. She also pointed to the $600,000 directed grant for downtown revitalization in the 2023-2025 state budget.

By early April, Terracon was testing the West Elm Street lot for possible contaminants, and the city had barricaded the site. The planned park would eliminate about 25 two-hour parking spaces. The lot had been resurfaced in the 2023-24 fiscal year for about $58,500, making the process behind the project as visible and contested as the park itself.