CARTHAGE, Mo. —
So mowing, weeding, trimming, raking, planting, watering, fertilizing and cleanup are too much for you?
What if you had seven parks, including a swimming pool and a golf course, to maintain with the help of only four men and one secretary?
That is the task set out for Alan Bull, city parks director. He said that when he first went to work for the Parks Department, trash cans in the parks were emptied only on Mondays and Fridays. “Now we clean restrooms and dump trash every (week)day, and in the summer, we empty them six days a week,” he said.
Also, during summers, one of his employees has to spend all his time at Fair Acres maintaining the softball and soccer fields. It leaves a minimum amount of time and manpower to plan for and implement improvements. That is why Bull is pleased to be working with the Parks Visioning Committee to collect, sort and winnow suggestions from the public for meeting community recreational needs.
The committee is working with five architecture students from Drury University who will help define and refine the suggestions received from public input. The students have quite a bit of experience, Bull said, because they cannot participate until they are in the fourth year of a five-year program.
The first meeting with the public resulted in “a lot of input, a lot of sticky notes,” Bull said. After a couple more meetings, the students will present their findings to the City Council in December, and then it will be up to the public service committee to recommend what improvements can be implemented, with council approval.
The initial meeting, with about 60 people attending, indicated support for more soccer fields and improvements to the swimming pool in Municipal Park, originally constructed during Works Progress Administration days.
Bull said that in the last year or so, rather than trying to do piecemeal maintenance and improvements throughout the city, his department has refocused its efforts on a single park at a time
“We started with Griggs Park,” he said. Crews upgraded the basketball and tennis courts and the skateboard area, and improved the playground equipment and fencing. “There are more people using it than ever before,” Bull said.
The next focus is Carter Park, where roads were paved, curb and gutter and landscaping were added, and the south entrance was changed to eliminate a five-road intersection. There also is a plan to add a soccer field and restrooms.
Meanwhile, there are routine maintenance needs that cannot be put off. Bull hopes to redo the shelter houses in Municipal Park. The skating hall needs repainting, and a roof on the shelter at Central Park needs replacing. In a week or so, Blevins Asphalt will be repaving some of the roads in Municipal Park at a cost of $80,000.
The Parks Department is funded by a 15.06-cent tax on real property valuations that produces revenue of $175,886. The remainder needed to meet the 2014 budget of $437,598 is provided from the city’s general fund. More than 66 percent of the department’s budget is allocated to workers’ salaries and benefits.
Bull said a biking and walking trail linking several of the parks from the Ruby Jack Trail through the Walnut Bottoms and Kellogg Lake Park also was discussed at the last meeting. The single-track trail for mountain bike riding, which already has been funded, is on hold because of the necessity for property acquisition.
“I think there’s going to be some great ideas come out (of the visioning committee),” Bull said, “But they are just ideas. It’s up to us to implement them.”
ADDRESS CORRESPONDENCE to Jo Ellis, c/o The Joplin Globe, Box 7, Joplin, MO 64802 or email news@joplinglobe.com.
Next meeting
THE NEXT MEETING of the Parks Visioning Committee will be at 6 p.m. Thursday at Memorial Hall. It is open to the public.
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