There will be no new park in Verona, at least not this year.

That's what the Augusta County Board of Supervisors voted on Wednesday night.

It's not a new idea. The plan for a park in Verona was first proposed back in 2003, and it's been talked about ever since.

But Wednesday night, the Board of Supervisors decided to turn the idea down, and several people weren't too happy about it.

"If they killed it, with no money, in my opinion it's never going to happen," said Larry Curry, who works in Augusta County's Park and Recreation Department.

Curry is one of many people who have wanted a park in Verona for several years.

"It's for a general use passive park, as I explained, for all ages for all types of activities such as hiking and biking and hopefully a playground down there for the smaller kids and such," said Curry.

A few other people in the crowd got up to support the idea to build this park. But Augusta County Supervisor David Karaffa motioned to turn the proposal down.

"That specific location was not ideal for a park," said Karaffa. "It floods frequently, it's an old waste water treatment plant site, it was just not going to be conducive for the kind of facility we were envisioning."

The park would have been built next to the old ASR plant in Verona, right near the Middle River.

"If that's not a valid site then we ask for tabling that and keeping the money in that and researching another area," said Curry.

But board members like Karaffa say with a tight budget this year, the park is not a main priority.

"Right now we're facing a 4.5 million dollar budget deficit in our schools," said Karaffa. "We will be getting some information in the next month on exactly what kind of deficits we're facing here in the county, but from what I understand they are pretty significant."

Significant enough for five of the seven board members to turn the idea down.

Karaffa says he thinks a park in Verona is a good idea, but he says research would need to be done for a better location. He also says they may be able to work out a way for people to access the river, even without building the park.

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