The promise of cooler weather just over the horizon is certain to stir us from our heat-induced seclusion.
Soon, we will rediscover our favorite outdoor vistas and venues.
For Columbus, perhaps the favorite of such places is The Riverwalk, which opened in 2005 and is considered by many to be the city’s best idea in a long time. More than any other place you can name, it is where our community gathers — for all manner of events. It is a place where people run or walk or simply stroll through the winding path along the Tombigbee River.
We’d like to believe it is helping us become a healthier community, in more ways than one.
Yet for all that the Riverwalk is, its success is also reliant on something it is easy for us to forget or ignore.
If The Riverwalk is a jewel, it is the city’s pubic works department that give it its sparkle.
Visit the Riverwalk and you will almost always encounter these workers, maintaining the 2.2-mile path, it pavilions, benches and its grounds.
When the venue was in its planning stages, some worried such a sprawling project would be subject to vandalism, decay, neglect, even crime.
Yet there have been only isolated instances of those worries and much has to do with the city’s efforts to maintain the Riverwalk at very high standards.
It is clean,. It is safe. It is welcoming.
We acknowledge our city employees for their important role in making sure the Riverwalk continues to be everything we imagined it to be 12 years ago.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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