Hi Everyone,

We marked the one year anniversary of the project in June with a renewed flurry of activity.  Combined with the usually summer activities, it has been a very busy time for us.  So I just wanted to take a couple minutes and bring everyone up to date on our park project.

We started the summer caught in a tough spot.  Parks and Recreation indicated that they had contacted Public Works about the land, but there was never any indication from either department that any progress was being made.  So in late May, we contacted Dave Zelonok the Group Support Manager for Public Works about having a meeting to discuss ways of securing the land.  We unfortunately did not receive a response and in late June decided that participating in Mayor Makepeace's 10 Minutes With The Mayor would be a good way to introduce her to the project along with the bureaucratic difficulties we face.  Councilman Skorman just happened to be the guest person at this meeting and he was very disappointed to find that nothing had been done.  The Mayor was very interested and supportive of our efforts and promised to contact Public Works.

Shortly after that meeting, Ron Romero in Public Works got in touch with us.  It took a fair amount of time to set up a meeting, but we finally got together with Public Works on August 17th.  The meeting was professional and polite, but we basically ran into a brick wall.  Public Works didn't even know that they owned the land and had very little history behind how it got into their department.  They acknowledged that there aren't any plans for the land and that it has little value to them.  However, they would not consider putting a conservation easement and somehow had the impression that we wanted to buy the land.  Of course, our objective is to not own the land because our organization does not have the legal capability of defending it.  Public Works did indicate that they had offered three interdepartmental trade ideas with Parks and Recreation and had a two page letter that described why Parks and Recreation would not participate.  This was definitely a low moment in our project.

Fortunately, the summer has closed on a more upbeat tone.  In late August, Steve and I met with Paul Butcher.  He is the Group Support Manager for Parks and Recreation.  The meeting was very pleasant and he indicated that he would be willing to have the land under Parks and Recreation.  He even asked if we would mind having the the trail maintained and that they would love to protect the cliffs at the south end of the overall project.  Paul suggested that we write a letter to himself, Dave Zelenok and James Mullen the City Manager.  This puts the project at a level where decisions on the transfer can actually be made.  A copy of the letter to the city can be viewed by clicking here.

Since the land is not of significant value to Public Works, we just need to make sure that it is transferred to Parks and Recreation without too much interdepartmental horse trading.  So we are encouraging everyone to contact the city and express your desire to have the meadow transferred to Parks and Recreation.  Here are several links to the main contact page and Steve's suggestionson what to include in your correspondence.  Finally, here is a link to a sample letter to Mr. Guman our City Councilman.  Please take a moment to contact several members of our city government and let them know how much the park means to you.

We have not heard from the church, but several sources have told us that they bought out the developers of the homes and are working towards just putting a church in place.  We believe that they have hired a consulting firm to look over the numerous development hurdles.  While we would love to preserve the entire area, not building the 12 homes is one of our main goals and encouraging any church development towards the corner of Ranch and Union is another.  We believe accomplishing these two tasks will preserve the open space nature of the meadow down below and protect the church from the immanent flooding that often occurs.  For now, we are just waiting for an opportunity to reopen negotiations with them.

Scot