The Importance
As the Campaign to Save Coxhall Garden’s gears up I want to share with everyone the importance of the situation at Coxhall Garden’s.
Coxhall Garden’s is a beautiful public park located in Hamilton County, Indiana.
This beautiful park is filled with open grass fields to have a picnic, ponds where wildlife thrives, and trees growing right before our eyes. But in the midst of all the natural beauty a private business is fully operational raking in the cash.
Long story short (to learn more about the history of the situation visit the “situation” page) Jesse and Beulah Cox donated their 125 acres of land to the Hamilton County Parks Department in 1999 to “preserve and oasis in a sea of homes.” In 2005 the Hamilton County Parks Department started a bidding process to give the highest bidder an exclusive contract to be the exclusive rental manager and exclusive catering partner for Coxhall Garden’s. The Ritz Charles won that bid.
As the Ritz Charles took over the Coxhall Garden’s facilities (the beautiful centerpiece along with a temporary tent) they began charging upwards of 40 times the normal rate to rent the facilities at Coxhall Garden’s compared to the consistent rate all of the other Hamilton County Parks Facilities rent at. (Coxhall Garden’s Facility Rental Rate: $2,000+ ; Any other Facility in the Hamilton County Parks System: $50 – $150).
Beyond that instead of acknowledging Coxhall Garden’s as a public park the Ritz Charles constantly touts it as one of their venues in their advertising.
Here are some things that we have to understand in our campaign to Save Coxhall Garden’s:
- Coxhall Garden’s is a public park. This means you as a taxpayer of Hamilton County are providing funding for the maintenance, improvements, and staff for Coxhall Garden’s.
- The Ritz Charles is causing wear and tear on the park…you as a taxpayer are paying to keep it beautiful!
- The Ritz Charles is using a public park for for-profit private uses.
- The Ritz Charles is charging outrageous and unreasonable amounts of money to rent the facilities at Coxhall Garden’s.
- The practice of bidding out public park facilities to a private company is not a common practice among municipalities. The Hamilton County Parks Department needs to understand the precedent they have now set for their parks…that if a business wants to set up shop in a Hamilton County Park…well who knows now…
Our campaign to Save Coxhall Garden’s from privatization and commercialization will be two fold.
- We need to spread awareness about this issue. The Hamilton County Parks Department kept the whole bidding process on the down low a couple years ago so the contracts they have set up are already in effect. The more people know the more effective our campaign will be!
- We need to pressure the Hamilton County Parks Department to terminate and prevent any contracts that would privatize or commercialize our beautiful public parks. Furthermore, Coxhall Garden’s just accepted $1.5 million to renovate the Cox’s Mansion on the property. Plans are already in the works to turn parts of the mansion into rental facilities…we can only guess that the Cox’s former dream home will be privatized and commercialized…
As we continue to get started please take time to look around the site and be sure to sign the petition and share the petition with your friends: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/savecoxhallgardens
