To better align with those who regularly use city parks, parks director Sam Dudley thinks it’s a good idea to make a third seat on the parks commission an atlarge position, meaning anyone who lives outside of Eureka Springs, but still within Carroll County, could apply.
Dudley proposed the idea to commissioners at their regular meeting Tuesday, June 18. Currently, the commission has seven seats, five of which are reserved for representatives who must live within city limits, and two at-large spots.
“It would be nice if we could expand the pool, the area, and add one more [atlarge] seat,” Dudley said, adding that the commission would still comprise seven seats. “That means it would be the western half of Carroll County as opposed to living in city limits. We would have three out of the seven positions available that could be at-large as opposed to just two, which I think would be a better representation of park users.
“It would include people up in Holiday Island and people who live south of town or west of town.”
Rodd Gray and Beth Giltner hold the two at-large positions on the commission, while the city council will likely vote on filling the lone vacant spot at its council meeting on Monday, June 24, Dudley said.
“I think we’re unique in parks versus say the planning commission or HDC or something like that,” he said. “They’re very city specific where we are not so much city specific in that we have Leatherwood.”
In order to make the change, the parks commission would have to approve it and then send it to city council for approval, commissioners were told.
Commission chair Mark Ingram questioned whether the topic was something in the commission’s by-laws and felt that needed to be researched before a vote should take place. Others at the table agreed, saying that since the commission would likely soon be at capacity again, there was no hurry to take action.
“I feel like if it’s a bylaw change, we might take that opportunity to review all of our bylaws,” Ingram said. “Get that done once and for all.”
BARK PARK II?
Dudley also shared another idea, passing out a possible plan for next year of expanding the city’s Bark Park to make an area that is more user-friendly.
“I do have some cool ideas to expand the Bark Park, pending y’all’s approval,” he said. “I would like to move forward with them at some point. Not this year, but potentially next year.”
Much of the current Bark Park is on an incline and has many trees, some of which fell and destroyed a chainlink fence during recent storms.
“Having all that damage happen at Bark Park kind of opened our eyes to some of the issues with it,” Dudley said. “… There’s an area down there in the lower parking lot that we could lay sod and turn it into a flatter, more accessible Bark Park because there’s certain people who have trouble with mobility, or their dogs have trouble with mobility.
“Our Bark Park is a little rough, so it’s not easy terrain. It’d be nice to have one that’s a little easier to access for people. … It’s kind of sloppy right now.”
Dudley said the plan would be to also add a restroom facility near the proposed new dog park.
“To be clear, we would keep the original one, but would definitely make some modifications to it,” he said.
Commissioners liked the idea.
“To me it looks perfect,” Ingram said. “I used to live in inner-city Dallas and we had a lot of dogs parks close by within the city … and you could throw a ball long distances and there was a place for them to run. What you didn’t have to do is have them jump over stumps and stones and rocks on an incline. That’s not good for an older dog…” Dudley said he would pitch the idea to the city advertising and promotion commission for potential funding help “because we do promote our town as a dog-friendly town, so we should have a dog park.”
“It’s been a nice pilot program because that was our first dog park,” commissioner Ruth Hager said. “We’ve seen that people really use it and really need it. Now, we can expand and feel like it will definitely be used.”
DIRECTOR’S REPORT
In his director’s report, Dudley reported that the cleanup at the Bark Park is progressing.
“I was able to use one of our employees’ personal excavators and get all the stumps out of the park, so that’s good, they’re gone,” he said. “And then [Tuesday] a fencing company representative came by and we tagged everything at the Bark Park and it will be fixed probably by the end of the week. … People are still kind of using it, but we’ll have it officially reopened hopefully by the end of the week or early next week.”
Now that the cleanup of city parks is nearing completion the focus of Dudley and his staff will be preparations for the Jamboreeka event, which will be held July 4 at Lake Leatherwood Ballparks.
Five food vendors and two local breweries are confirmed for the event, which will include live music, and many games such as a dunking booth, slip-n-slide and foam pit. The event will conclude with fireworks.
“Free admission, so come out and have fun,” Dudley said.
One of the highlights of the event will be raffle tickets that will be sold during festivities. Local businesses have donated a large list of prizes that will be drawn in the days after the event, Dudley said.
Dudley also told commissioners that a volunteer group from Grassy Knob was going to help with the event and American Legion volunteers will help with parking.
CREDIT CARD FIX
The commission also voted to change the official administrator and authorized user of the six credit cards that the department uses.
Dudley explained that the administrator of the cards is still former parks director Justin Huss. The department has had two directors since then.
“We really need to update who can represent the cards if we lose one or order new ones when need be,” he said.
Dudley was voted as the authorized administrator with Nicky Boyette, the parks clerk, as an authorized user.
