Youth council members share ideas on Charles City park improvements

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Charles City Parks and Recreation Board discussed a preliminary draft of a master park plan for the community at its regular monthly meeting last week, and heard park improvement ideas from three members of the Mayor’s Youth Council.

Mayor Dean Andrews said the youth council is a nine-member group working with him to give a younger perspective to community concerns than city officials usually hear.

Katie Soifer, who will be a sophomore next school year, said the group was concerned about the clubhouse at Wildwood Golf Course and its availability as an event location.

“It’s really pretty, but its outdated,” she said, adding the group thinks it would be best to build a new clubhouse but keep it in the same style as the existing building.

Melanie Castaneda, who will be a junior, talked about needed updates at Sportsmen’s Park, including electrical work, improvements to the lights at the basketball and tennis courts, and especially a suggestion for security cameras in the park.

“A lot of older kids are taking over and causing some trouble,” she said.

Castaneda also advocated for improving restrooms and adding water fountains at Sportsmen’s, and said adding badminton courts would be well received, “because a lot of people love badminton.”

Destiny Squier, who will be a senior next school year, said the swimming pool at Lions Field Park could use improvements in its restrooms, and also noted that the parking lot needs to be paved “because there are way too many potholes, unfortunately, and it’s just not very safe.”

New facilities the city should consider at Lions Field include a splash pad near the pool, a sand volleyball court and she also advocated for badminton courts at that park.

Squire said the sledding hill at Lions Field is something that should be kept, but there should be parking at the bottom of the hill somewhere in the park instead of making people park along the highway at the top of the hill.

Squire also suggested improving the playground at Waverly Park for all the kids who live in that area, but wanted to make sure the city keeps “the very creepy clown face that we all love and adore,” referring to one of the few playground features at the park, which is also the location for the city dog park.

Parks & Rec Board member Sarah Barrett asked the students what their thoughts were regarding a skateboard park in the community. Barrett has long been an advocate for having a skate park to serve kids who may not be involved in other activities.

Squire said she didn’t know a lot of kids who use skateboards, but Soifer said she knew kids who did.

Phoebe Pittman, a middle school teacher and City Council member who is the council liaison to the Parks & Rec Board, said there seems to be a resurgence of kids who skate.

“A few more skateboards have shown up at school,” Pittman said.

Several ideas that the students brought up have been part of the ongoing discussions Parks & Rec Board members have been having regarding a master park plan, and the board members thanked the students for their input.

After the students’ report, the board members reviewed the first draft of the Charles City master park plan over a video conference with Shannon Gapp, a planner with MSA Professional Services, which the city hired to help create the plan.

The presentation was a first very rough draft “to kind of get an idea of what the document’s looking like,” Gapp said. “It’s definitely still very, very flexible.”

The plan is currently broken down into six chapters. In addition to an introduction at the beginning and an appendix at the end, the chapters deal with the process that was used to develop the plan; the vision for parks and recreation in the community; recommendations for changes, additions and improvements; and a chapter on implementing the changes.

“It’ll go into each and every one of the parks and recreation areas,” Gapp said., “And then chapter three is the vision – thinking about future amenities, future changes, potentially even future parks and then recommendations based on what we heard from you all at your meetings.”

The implementation chapter will have an “action plan matrix,” Gapp said, that will include potential project costs and also possible funding sources.

“We’ll want to talk a little bit more about priorities, time frame, things like that, but I’ve got a start to it,” she said.

Gapp said the recommendations chapter will have five categories – accessibility, park innovation, health and wellness, preserving and enhancing green spaces and promoting community pride.

She said it’s important to not only think about improvements, but enhancing accountability in project completion, and then sustaining improvements over time.

Parks & Rec Board members pointed out a couple of corrections and suggestions on the first draft, but overall members were complimentary of the work Gapp had done so far.

Gapp said she would continue refining the information and bring the next version of the master park plan back to the board.