It appears that Cochran Park is going to be just as it used to be.

After months of discussions while the damaged park sat dormant, and just as talks with the city of Stockbridge had gotten underway, the Henry County Board of Commissioners voted 4-2 at its Dec. 17 regular meeting to repair the infrastructure at the park so that youth baseball could resume as soon as possible.

Bruce Holmes and Dee Clemmons voted against the move. It was Holmes who ordered the park closed last summer due to serious stormwater problems and later proposed that it be repurposed as a passive park. That idea did not sit well with local youth baseball enthusiasts or Stockbridge officials.

County officials determined that it would cost about $550,000 to make the necessary park repairs. The Dec. 17 vote stipulated that the funds for the repair would come from the county’s stormwater account.

After his passive park proposal failed to get board support, Holmes made a motion at a meeting last month to repair the park and give it to Stockbridge, on the condition that the city agreed to take responsibility for its operations and management. That idea was approved.

But in a Dec. 12 letter to board chair June Wood, Stockbridge Mayor Anthony Ford put forth a counterproposal that required three major commitments from the county:

The adoption of an intergovernmental agreement under which the county would operate the park for five years while the city established a recreation department with its own athletic program.

An expansion of the county’s previous assessment of the park to determine what additional repairs were needed aside from the stormwater system.

Additional repairs undertaken by the county during the transition period such building, asphalt and other items which are identified as deficiencies.

County officials took that as a rejection of the initial offer. The resolution approved Dec. 17 states, “the city has not accepted the offer of conveyance of the park.”

The lack of movement in negotiations beyond this point was not well received by Holmes, and he laid the blame squarely at Wood and fellow board members. He issued the following statement to the Times via email the morning after the meeting:

“The chairwoman caved in a basic negotiation with the city of Stockbridge. How can we trust her to deliver at the state and federal levels with bringing resources back to the county? This explains why we have had zero wins the last 3 to 4 years. Just promises to set priorities with no results and a list of road projects that may never get funded. With that said, it’s sad that a legitimate public safety concern was politicized by board members looking for a win. Now that Cochran Park is behind us, I’m looking ahead to tremendous future for Henry County.”