When my neighborhood of Trinity Park first advocated for traffic calming on the cutthroat cut-throughs of Duke and Gregson streets a few years back, our friends in City Hall had a financially prudent argument for why only limited measures could be adopted.

It turns out that the N.C. Department of Transportation maintains (or pretends to) Duke and Gregson. So if the city wanted to implement intensive calming devices like speed humps on the thoroughfares, the state would have been happy to oblige -- if the city took over responsibility for the roads, including their ongoing repaving costs.

Why should the city take over an expense that the state was willing to pay for, the argument went, spending precious property tax dollars on a bill the state would happily foot?

Since then, a compromise has been reached and a small dose of traffic calming is on its way for Duke and Gregson. But the city-vs.-state argument has reared its head again in recent weeks, with a quite different outcome.

For several months, elected officials and civic organizations have been debating the future of a 60-acre parcel near the Eno River in North Durham, owned by ex-Durhamite Mildred Lee Ray and which, thanks to the once-planned Eno Drive highway, is zoned for dense development.

This parcel and its runoff slope down toward the river, however, and toward the city-owned West Point on the Eno, a jewel of the municipal park system and home to the Festival for the Eno and a number of educational programs.

At least one local nonprofit wants the city to purchase the land from the Ray family, but with an asking price north of $4 million and tight municipal budgets, funds aren't exactly easy to come by.

Enter the state, which has provided at least preliminary feelers into the city's interest in having the state purchase the parcel -- in exchange for which the City of Durham would transfer West Point Park to state control.

Our state government, you see, already manages the parkland to the west of Guess Road, in the form of Eno River State Park. But the eastern portion of the recreational area is a separate city park.

That difference means thousands of dollars in city funds for maintenance. And upkeep. And programming. And capital projects, including $1.6 million for a new bridge and greenway at the Eno. Taken as a whole, not an inexpensive facility to manage.

So just why, exactly, are Durham's elected leaders reportedly so anxious to turn down the state's admittedly still-tenuous offer, even to the point of planning how they might find dollars to buy the controversial Ray parcel using city funds?

One argument is that the city has invested into the park's improvements -- like the recent pedestrian bridge -- and it wouldn't be right to give those to the state for nothing.

In the world of business, that's a sunk cost. Durham's already gone and spent that bridge money, regardless of whether it keeps or transfers the park.

Furthermore, we all pay taxes to the city and the state. And frankly, I don't see a dime's worth of difference which of them maintains the park -- save for the fact that, just as with Duke and Gregson, letting the state foot the bill spreads those costs out across a wider base.

A stronger argument lies in the concern of some that the state might not permit certain activities to continue, like the Festival for the Eno.

Such a hypothetical fear, though, could easily be resolved before any such deal is reached -- much as the city and Minor League Baseball negotiated to let local teams and events use the Durham Athletic Park despite the professional league assuming operations of the historic stadium.

In the end, this one just looks and smells like a turf war. In an era of shrinking budgets and too many fiscal priorities, exactly what other explanation makes sense?

Chalk this one up as another time I'd like to see some thrifty thinking out of City Hall.