Busy Days

Looking across old lower pond towards Jacksonville skyline

The last few weeks have been busy in the parks. This last week alone we met with the Florida Dept of Environmental Protection, Jacksonville University, and an event planner.

The meeting with DEP was to ascertain whether of not the proposed location for the Rose Arbor in Confederate Park would be affected by any contamination stemming from the Park View Inn location. The short answer is, no. This should eliminate one of the arguments that the Parks and Recreation Dept have given us to not build the arbor.

While speaking of the Hogan’s Creek situation, the representatives from DEP were interested to hear about our two ponds that were filled in. They have asked those of us at the meeting to try to find records or witnesses as to what may have been dumped in the ponds. They seemed interested in the possibility that they may have been used as dumping sites.

At the meeting I was fortunate enough to meet Philip Ramsey. Mr. Ramsey is an event coordinator who has ties to the Uncommon Grounds Café in San Marco. Most recently he was involved in organizing the Tangerine Festival at Memorial Park in Riverside. Mr. Ramsey is part of a group of people who have an interest in starting a public vegetable garden in our area. He also expressed an interest in perhaps trying to plan an event in one of our parks. It should be interesting to see where this relationship goes.

Our meeting with Jacksonville University was to see if some of their chemistry students would like to perhaps use our polluted little creek for some homework. JU has done a lot of testing on the St Johns River, and seems very interested in testing the sediment of our creek for non-biological contaminants. We will keep you up to date on JU’s plans as they become more clear.

Coming up this week we are meeting with Parks and Recreation about Klutho Park. On April 22^nd Historic Springfield will be hosting the Symphony Showcase of Homes, as well as the Designs on Springfield. The Designs on Springfield is an event that will be held in Klutho Park, and will have fun, food, and entertainment for the entire family. I have offered the time of the Parks Task Force to do what can be done to make the park ready for this event. In short, the trash will be picked up, the grass will be mowed, and what ever else we manage to squeeze out of our friends over at parks and recreation.

We also have a meeting scheduled with the City Of Jacksonville regarding the Hogan’s Creek Greenway. For those that are unaware, there is a planned biking, walking, running path planned from Liberty St to 8^th Street along Hogan’s Creek. This is a fully funded project, of which we will learn the details on Wednesday. Stay tuned to this site and UrbanJacksonville for updates on the Hogans Creek greenway plan.