With Marion’s many detours, best to just detour Marion

Have you been to Marion recently? Don’t bother. All of the roads to and from Marion appear to be closed.

When I leave my home, I can’t go up 29th Avenue. It has been closed. I think they are working on 35th Street which has caused that problem. Nuts to this, I’m heading for Hiawatha. Not so fast, Boyson Road is closed as well.

Instead I’ll head the other way through downtown Marion, using the Sixth Avenue “bypass” of main street Marion. Nope, can’t do that. A big stretch of that through downtown by City Hall is closed as well.

Instead, I’ll go for a bike ride on one of Marion’s beautiful bike trails. Except when they planned the bike trail, they took it right past the same City Hall, on the sidewalk. Oops. Too dangerous. Now the bike trail is a “get off your bike and walk” trail as the City no longer allows you to ride your bike down five blocks of that section of the trail.

Who is planning all of this stuff? Do they understand what “planning” means? It means looking at the big picture with some foresight as to how it impacts its citizens and “planning” accordingly.

Now they are asking for millions of dollars for a proposed water park. They way they use our tax money with their demonstrated planning expertise, that will end up being a large above ground pool and a slip ‘n slide.

Mike Hayes

Marion