We need to clear up something that was brought to our attention by Paul Mansfield, who has spent considerable time and energy in recent years in helping keep Benton attractive.
Mansfield is chairman of Keep Benton Beautiful. He is forever enlisting volunteer help for beautification and cleanup projects around the city. He relies on volunteer help because the committee’s budget is small and tighter than Dick’s hat band.
We said in a recent editorial that the triangle area at the congested, almost nightmarish intersection of Military Road and North East Street is a potential oasis. Amid businesses and tall signs and billboards, the triangle could be an attractive escape with flowers, trees and shrubs.
One problem is that motorists confuse the triangle with an outdoor trash receptacle. Keeping litter off the triangle grass is a full-time chore. So is keeping the triangle grass mowed during the growing season.
We remarked about the triangle because an old, rusted, four-legged sign is in the middle of it advertising for an organist. We learned that the nearby First Presbyterian Church, which owns the triangle property, placed the sign there.
We also said that if memory served, Keep Benton Beautiful had assumed responsibility a year or two ago of maintaining the triangle.
Not so, Mansfield informs us.
“We proposed that plan [to the church] but never did get approval,” Mansfield says. “I talked to the pastor and several board members several times about three years ago about letting Keep Benton Beautiful and the city have permission to beautify the property with flowers, shrubs and trees. That was never approved.”
The proposal, Mansfield explains, included an architect’s rendering of how the triangle could look with trees, flowers and shrubs. Keep Benton Beautiful also proposed placing a digital signboard of some type on the property to advertise upcoming community events.
Mansfield says he later approached the pastor and church board members about the proposal “but was always told that the board had not met to make a decision. I finally just gave up on plans for the project.”
So for a while, Mansfield says, “I picked up litter, car parts, yard sale signs and other assorted junk that was thrown on the property. But the church has the responsibility of taking care of the [triangle], not Keep Benton Beautiful.”
We appreciate Mansfield helping us straighten out the situation with the triangle. We confused Mansfield’s proposal with the belief that Keep Benton Beautiful had assumed responsibility for keeping the triangle attractive.
We still view the triangle as a potential oasis — along with the nearby concrete triangle that years ago housed a popular barbecue restaurant — but after understanding the situation, we’re not sure who could or would assume responsibility for keeping up the triangle. It would require a dedicated volunteer effort whether the church decided to accept Mansfield’s proposal or decided to maintain the property itself.
Maybe something will be worked out by next spring or summer. We hope so, and so do a lot of other Benton residents, because that piece of property could add a lot to an intersection that otherwise features concrete, metal and traffic.

Today’s editorial was written by Whit Jones, editor of the Courier, on behalf of the newspaper’s editorial board.
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