Even though the weather this week hasn’t exactly felt like it, we’re well into spring.

Kids have started practicing baseball in Memorial Park. Pretty soon softball will start up practices and soon the girls will be out there as well.

Other people will begin using the park with more frequency as well.

Mothers will begin taking their kids to play on the playground. Families will be having picnics and cookouts.

And everyone that goes into the park will have to look at the eye sore that is the ill-fated “fishing pond.”

Surrounded by ugly plastic orange fencing, the pond is currently nothing more than a gaping, muddy hole on the otherwise pleasant landscape of the park.

It’s been like that since last July, when the Russellville city council – spearheaded by councilman Lanny McPherson – told mayor Gene Zick to put a stop to the construction of the pond.

Since Zick had not explicitly asked the council’s permission to go ahead with the construction of the pond, he went ahead and put the project on hold until the two sides could decide what to do next.

That was in July.

Now we’re over halfway through April and nothing has been done about the situation.

The hole is still there – just like it was in July – waiting on someone to step up and make a decision.

Personally, I don’t care if the pond is completed or not.

I can see where it would be a nice addition to Memorial Park, but one of McPherson’s biggest complaints was that it would be costly to do it right.

With the city experiencing a budget crunch at the moment, it’s probably not the right time to be adding a pond.

But you can’t just leave a hole in the middle of the park either.

It’s about time for the council to make some sort of a decision.

The city made a mess of the park with the fishing pond fiasco. Nine months later, it’s about time to clean it up.

— OJ Stapleton is the editor of the News-Democrat & Leader. Contact him at edit_ndl@bellsouth.net or 726-8394.