Park Happenings

In the last few months the parks task force has been fairly busy. We have met with City Councilwoman Lockett-Felder again to follow up with some problems we face in our work in the parks. We have also had correspondence with Parks and Recreation, Jacksonville Sheriffs Office, and the Streets and Drainage Departments to address various issues in our parks.

To start with, there were some milestones achieved. The lightless cement poles in Klutho Park are finally gone. Liberty Park is finally underway, and the preliminary Drawings for the "Hogan's Creek greenway" are in. These are all items that have been sort of hanging out there for a long time, so it is good to see them start to be addressed.

The task force has done a decent job of staying on top of getting graffiti addressed when it appears in the parks. Sadly, Streets and Drainage, the city agency responsible for maintaining bridge structures, tend to paint ONLY the graffiti, leaving large white splotches on a bridge otherwise untouched by paint. At our behest Councilwoman Lockett-Felder has asked JSO to help beautify our parks by having inmates paint the Pearl and Broad St bridges. JSO told us they expect to start painting in February, but that it may take a few visits to get the job done. The have also agreed to have a group of inmates address the litter and trash in the area while working on the bridges.

Streets and Drainage did address the shopping cart situation in the creek about a month ago. A large number of carts were removed, but there are still more that need to be picked out. With any luck we can get S&D to get that done. We are also working on getting the weed situation looked at. Streets and Drainage says that Hogan’s Creek is on a list of waterways that are supposed to be treated for Hydrilla weed. Now that we know that is the case, we can work to stay on top of the weed problem in the creek. This should help the flow and appearance of the creek.

We are asking Parks and Recreation to do some preliminary work on finding funding for a playground in Klutho Park. It is by far the most used of our parks by families, and it would make a nice addition to the area. Ideally we feel that there should be a play ground near every “activity center” to allow parents to bring their children along while making use of the facilities we already have in place like the Tennis Courts, ball field, and basketball court.

Finally we would like to welcome Jason Acosta and Mike Dickey to the parks task force. Mike will be mainly helping behind the scenes with his knowledge of environmental issues, and Jason will be stepping in to help with the routine activities that the task force has been addressing over the last year. Doug Vanderlaan has officially spread himself too thin, and is moving on to chair our zones Sheriffs Advisory Council. This is along with his duties on the SPAR board, Urban Core CPAC, church responsibilities, and just generally being a swell guy. We will miss Doug, but we feel safe in saying the Confederate Park ducks wont.

Between newsletters please feel free to check out the Downtownparks blog for park updates and information. You can access this site at http://downtownpark.blogspot.com.