It’s not very often that a community has the opportunity to wrest prime land from a railroad company.

It is even more unusual to have a million dollar grant in hand to do so.

Recently, we were surprised that the council voted down the opportunity to pursue this purchase through a grant specifically for use on the creation of community trails.

We then heard from some astute local political observers who told us that the no vote was more of a protest on how Covington Mayor Kim Carter had acted toward people who came to protest their electric rates and that not much thought was put on the value of purchasing this land from the railroad.

We are glad that council is meeting to take a second look at this proposed land purchase.

We hope they make the wise decision to do so.

Now, what happens to that land after its purchase is worthy of a good, old fashioned public debate.