Readers Overwhelmingly Reject Main Street Water Fountain Concept

On Wednesday in the Concord NH Patch TELL US Question of the Day feature, I asked what everyone thought about putting a water feature – a fountain for children to play in – outside of the Statehouse.

On the Patch post and two Facebook posts, more than 30 people offered comments on the idea with all but a handful rejecting the idea outright.

Some of the positive comments included “Looks like a great idea. I am familiar with the park in Boston--it creates a sense of some peace in a fast paced area!!” A local mom simply wrote, “yes, please..”

But others thought it was a completely inappropriate use of the city’s money and worried about the maintenance costs too.

“Not there. Way too small. Can you imagine the scene at that location......C'mon kids, put your bathing suits on and lets go on down to Main St..... get wet, be happy, run, jump and skip .....steps away from a busy road! Yeah, right,” offered one reader. Another mom wrote, “ENOUGH ALREADY. Can we please come up with ACTUAL AND FUNCTIONAL improvement ideas? How long until someone is using it as a public toilet? But that said - next time the pools are up for rehab/replacement, we should make a spray park in one of the parks. It's gotta be cheaper to maintain than a pool.” 

Blogger Robert Baker offered some thoughts this week about the project here and why he thinks it fails to meet the federal requirements of a TIGER grant: Main Street Fails Complete Streets for TIGER Grant Funding

On Thursday, Patch asked about what you thought of the city's new website: TELL US: What Do You Think of Concord’s New Website? Check it out and leave a note in the comment section. 

Concord NH Patch will have another question up later this afternoon.