Many longtime Oxford residents remember the days when the city’s garbage landfill was at the spot the city plans to build its new Activity Center.

It wasn’t that many decades ago when the trucks collected trash from this town, depositing all the debris at a facility between Price Street and Molly Barr Road. Yes, that was close to many houses and close to a school, but that’s how it was done back in the day.

Memories can be short, however, so it came as a surprise to some that the location for Oxford’s planned new Activity Center would partially sit on 12 feet of trash buried in the old city landfill. The options were simple: remove the trash, relocate the building, or build on the site as-is and hope for the best.

The city has made the right choice, opting to move forward with design plans for the new Activity Center at the planned location that’s right by the current Activity Center.

The trash will be removed once the city’s finds $2 million to get that done. But removing the trash is the right thing to do, so that a facility that can serve the community well into the next generation can be build upon a stable site.