In surveys Mason City residents rank water sports (swimming, boating, and fishing) among their favorite recreational activities. The Mason River flowing through the city is rarely used for these pursuits, however, and the city park department devotes litt

The author strongly feels that the Mason City government should allocate more budget this year for riverside recreational facilities on the Mason River. He makes certain claims for corroborating his cause. We would need to analyze the same in order to come to a conclusion, whether the city government should allocate more funds for riverside recreational facilities.

First, although the author mentions about surveys which were taken among Mason City residents, he does not provide facts about the population on which the survey was conducted. It could be that the people who participated in the survey were not really interested in participating in the recreational activities, but they just wanted to watch. It could also be that most of them are not Mason City residents, they have come on a sojourn. There is no mention about the questions which were asked in the survey. It could be that most of the questions in the survey were concerned about a different topic and only a couple of very high level questions were attributed to Mason River. Questions would have been like 'what would you like to do best on the Mason River?'. If the people who answered the survey were outsiders and they just wanted to pass on with the questions, they must have provided the answers as stated by the author. This would further weaken author's claim. In addition to this, there is no mention of the age group of the people participated in the survey. They may contain a large number of young people who would be interested in the activities, but in real, they constitute a minority of population, rest may have a different opinion.

Secondly, the very fact that the Mason river is rarely used for recreational activities could be an indication that the local residents are least interested in these kind of activities. It can also be due to the poor conditions of the current recreational facilities, for which the City park department devotes little of its budget. Another point related to the less usage of river is the smell emanating from the river. Author states that a large number of complaints have come for this. But he doesn't state these complaints are from distinct sources or very few people have complained a lot many times. If the complainants are distinct, it could attribute to the reason why the river is not used. Also, we need much more details about the smell, what is the cause of the smell, whether it is due to any man-made causes like waste disposal by any industries nearby or it is a natural cause like presence of sulphur around. If it is man-made, the plan of cleaning up the river would help, provided locals are really interested in participating in recreational activities. If they are natural causes, cleaning up would provide little help.

To conclude, the points stated by author is unwarranted and does not help in providing a strong case to allocate more budget on river side recreational activities, it requires a lot more detailed analysis to come to a final conclusion where the money needs to be allocated.