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Park Board Discusses Maintenance Needs

Murray Calloway County Parks and Recreation / Facebook

The Murray-Calloway County Park Board discussed many concerns at its meeting last night. At the top of a list of 10 priorities were problems with the community pool and field lighting.

The community pool is 40-years-old and losing 3,000 gallons of water a day. Five of six lighting-deficient fields are more than 50 percent below safety standards. The park estimates replacing the community pool and bringing lighting up to standard would cost $1.5 million each.

Another priority is making the parks more accessible. Missy Jenkins Smith attended the meeting to advocate for improved park accessibility under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Smith is confined to a wheel chair after surviving the 1997 Heath High School shooting. She said she is unable to access the restrooms and playgrounds among other concerns. She stated her appreciation for the new accessible Bee Creek trail at the soccer complex and hopes that the rest of the park will improve in kind. The Park estimates it would cost $250,000 to complete necessary ADA projects. Parks Director Tab Brockman said he will hear back within the next several weeks about a Land and Water Conservation Grant that would be put toward accessibility improvements.

Other priorities include rebuilding reserve funds, maintaining paved roads and lots, baseball infrastructure, trail maintenance and lighting, pavilion rehab, and restroom renovations. The parks board estimates all maintenance and improvement projects would cost more than $5 million.

The board discussed the upcoming park referendum, which if voted in, would bring in $1,090,128 for park maintenance and upgrade projects based on 2014 numbers. This would triple the parks funding if it continues to receive fiscal court funding, which Judge Executive Larry Elkins has stated he would advise reallocating. The parks received nearly $300,000 from the county and city this year, nearly half of their $600,000 budget. Elkins says the park referendum would bring in more than enough to support the parks without fiscal court funds.

The tripled budget may seem excessive, but Brockman said maintenance has been deferred for decades, making needed repairs excessive.  He said he could cover project costs on just the money brought in by the referendum.

“Of course you can (do the projects without fiscal court funding), but you have to stretch out the payments on those over a longer period of time. Because any of these projects we’re talking about, in summation, you would spread out over the course of 5, 10, 15 years to get them done. So you’re mortgaging the future to get these done even with this tax incentive in the Parks Referendum,” Brockman said.

Brockman also emphasized that the parks have used all reserve funds so there are no funds to address significant damage to any part of the park. He said the parks are moving ahead on the assumption that the fiscal court will cease funding the parks if the referendum were to pass.

Brockman sent a survey out to Kentucky’s municipal parks systems to determine average local government funding of parks systems, to which 24 of about 50 responded. On average, the parks received $1.7 million in local government funding. Breaking that down to per acre, average funding is $4,800.95.  Murray-Calloway’s average funding per acre is $1,768.29, ranking it at 22.

If the parks referendum passes the parks board could set the tax at $.05 or below, and once lowered it can never be raised. The parks would conduct a full assessment to determine in what order projects would receive the tax money. After addressing maintenance needs, Brockman says referendum money could be used to locate new parks outside city limits to better serve those in the county.

“I’m all for that and I think our park board would be all for that. However, you have to have resources to be able to develop those once you get them and we simply don’t have that right now. I think it would be great for us to have a park in each part of the county in addition to what we have in the center of the county, but it takes resources. That’s not the main drive of this right now, we’re just trying to fix what we have,” Brockman said.

As for current projects, the first phase of the Lion’s Club Skate Park is complete with new ramps and lights. The skate park is now seeing “tremendous use.” The park will have to raise funds to install more ramps in the next phase. Also, Playhouse in the Park is now set up to use natural gas through an in-kind donation from Murray Utilities, which ran a gas line to the building from Bee Creek. The park has the option to connect its maintenance shop to the line as well.

A proud native of Murray, Kentucky, Allison grew up roaming the forests of western Kentucky and visiting national parks across the country. She graduated in 2014 from Murray State University where she studied Environmental Sustainability, Television Production, and Spanish. She loves meeting new people, questioning everything, and dancing through the sun and the rain. She hopes to make a positive impact in this world several endeavors at a time.
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