I am one of the 17 members of the Uptown Streetscape Committee and I feel it is the right time for someone to let the public know what is going on within the committee. I am one of only three members of the committee that doesn't have ties to the Uptown area, and there are two city council members on the committee.

First off, I would like to thank the business that took the time to fill out the survey I personally made.

At our first meeting Craig Campbell, who is also on the committee, made it clear that we should not call the Depot in the park the Depot. Mr. Campbell instead called it a "cinder block structure."

It is obvious that Mr. Campbell didn't look at the Iowa Railroad Historical Society website. He would have seen that the Depot is listed in their registry.

It is also obvious that Mr. Campbell does not know the difference between cinder block and brick. The roof is from the old Depot and weighs over 85,000 pounds. The structure is made up of over 120,000 bricks that came from the original Depot. Again, the structure is made from the original Depot's bricks, not cinder blocks.

Nick Bowden from Community Redesigned has stated that the Depot takes up 40 percent of the park's space. Mr. Bowden does not have all the facts. City Square Park is 1.6 acres, which equates to over 69,000 square feet of area. Comparably, the Depot is 5,800 square feet. This equates to only eight percent of the park's area.

When I confronted Mr. Bowden, he retracted but stated that the Depot takes up 40 percent of the usable space in the park. How does eight percent of the total square footage take up 40 percent of the park's usable space? Is this some type of new math from Omaha?

Why do these two individuals want so much to destroy some of the railroad heritage of this community? I am sure they would not go to Elk Horn and tell the city need to get rid of the windmill in their park. The same with the Bull in Audubon, or the Coffee Pot Water Tower in Stanton.

Mr. Bowden unveiled plans for rain gardens on the north side of 7th Ave., something the uptown merchants on the committee didn't want. The merchants argued that when the city clears the uptown parking areas on the winter, the rain gardens would be damaged.

We were told the total cost for the entire proposal the Mr. Bowden proposed will cost $11.1 million. With Community Redesigned getting 10 percent of the final construction costs, that amount would become $12.2 million.

I am urging all citizens of Marion to please attend the public viewings with me. They are scheduled for August 11, 12 and 13. It is time for everyone to have their voices heard.

Dwight Hogan

Marion