MOUNT VERNON – Memorial and Riverside will be the first Mount Vernon parks studied to start the creation of a parks master plan for maintenance, upgrades and improvements, with the approval of hiring a consultant firm by City Council Monday night.
The employee and citizen survey revealed Mount Vernon’s 10 parks are a bright spot for the city, Safety-Service Director Rick Dzik said. The parks master plan will initially focus this year on those two parks, with some discussion about a good location for a dog park on existing city property.
“I’m not sure we have really done anything once we built the parks,” Dzik said. “We pretty much let it go and whatever facilities are there continue operating until they break. I’m not sure that that’s the best way that we should operate our park system.”
The parks master plan will help figure out what the city wants in each park, what needs to be replaced and a timeline for replacements and costs.
The contract for this first part of the parks master plan is not to exceed $50,000, so it did not require City Council approval as it fell under the Engineering Department’s project limits. But Auditor Terry Scott thought a change order might take it past that amount, so Parks and Lands Committee Chair Tanner Salyers and Dzik brought it to Council.
Other areas of community interest are the skate park, which is highly utilized but in disrepair, along with a big interest in pickleball.
“We’re going to probably have a brainstorming session with some of our community members who use the parks a lot and figure out where to focus our money each year for the next handful years,” Dzik said.
He told City Councilmember Julia Warga that they hope most of the analysis on the first two parks is finished by budget time. That will enable budgeting for the parks next year. Once the planning for the first two parks is done, the consultant will be told the next parks to study.
City Councilmember Samantha Scoles asked if Shelmar Park, the city’s newest park and with few amenities, fits in this plan.
“Some of our parks are more grassy area than anything else,” Dzik said. As Memorial and Riverside are the two largest parks aside from Ariel-Foundation Park, they seemed like a good place to start.
City Councilmember Mike Hillier said the city’s residents feel like the parks in their neighborhoods are independent parks that serve them.
“That’s kind of one thing and it holds good for Mount Vernon,” he said. “We do have independent parks for the neighborhoods so that a kid doesn’t have to travel — or an adult — clear across town to go to a park when they have one right in their neighborhood.”
Residents were encouraged to contact the City and Council members to offer their opinions about the parks.
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