The Astoria Parks and Recreation Department’s draft master plan recommends the department hire more full-time staff and find ways to increase revenue to ensure high-quality parks, programs and facilities.
The master plan — a work in progress that lays out the department’s vision and priorities — focuses on improving how the department operates, maintains park areas, plans for future use and development, markets its services and works with partner agencies.
The department has seven full-time employees, plus part time and seasonal staff members, to look after 300 acres of parkland used by 9,500 residents and even more visitors.
“We’re the largest parks and recreation service provider in the area,” Ian Sisson, the department’s planner, said, “and so we get people from across the bridge in Washington. We get people from Knappa, Svensen, Warrenton coming to use, not only our facilities like the Aquatic Center and Recreation Center, but also child care, after-school programs and the parks themselves.”
To boost revenue, the department may look into several possible funding streams, some more likely than others, including utility fees, system development charges and regular or incremental increases in user fees.
City Councilor Zetty Nemlowill, a member of the citizen advisory committee tasked with revising the master plan, suggested at a recent meeting that the city should consider dipping into the Promote Astoria fund, a hotel-room tax fund, for parks-and-rec projects.
“Maybe not (for) maintenance but, potentially, wayfinding signage and adding trails,” she said. “Those are essentially creating new products to promote Astoria.”
Other priorities
In addition, most of the advisory committee members believe the plan should reflect as priorities:
- reducing or eliminating expenditures that don’t support the “core” parks-and-recreation assets and services — a move that may include selling, leasing, repurposing or scaling back maintenance on underused parkland;
- creating a parks maintenance plan that establishes standards for levels of care at each site, and prioritizes the backlog of deferred maintenance tasks;
- getting involved in city initiatives, such as Heritage Square and the Riverfront Vision Plan, that would involve the department and draw time and resources away from existing parks services;
- devising a master plan for Ocean View Cemetery in Warrenton that includes figuring out how much of the 50 undeveloped acres on the 100-acre site is actually developable;
- and implementing the 2013 trails master plan.
Lil’ Sprouts
Nemlowill questioned whether Lil’ Sprouts Academy, a parks department-run day care center, should be considered a “core service.”
The final master plan, she said, should explore ways the department might encourage other entities, whether public or private, to take over day care in the future.
Dulcye Taylor, a committee member and president of the Astoria Downtown Historic District Association, agreed: “I never understood why day care and kids programs were under parks. I mean, that does seem like the responsibility of the schools.”
“Lil’ Sprouts is really important,” Nemlowill said, “and we have a responsibility to keep it going right now.”
But, with the city facing minimum-wage increases over the next few years — which parents will have to pay for through increased user fees — “the day care’s going to get tougher and tougher to staff and run,” she said, “and it’s going to take the focus away from keeping the Aquatic Center open and hiring lifeguards, which, to me, seems like more of a core service.”
Discussing whether a new business could address the community’s day care needs, Parks Director Angela Cosby said, “We currently have 70 children on our wait list, so there’s a massive demand.”
Scott Tucker, a committee member and superintendent of Lewis and Clark National Historical Park, said day care should remain a core service “until a comparable service becomes available.”
“It just seems as though, potentially, somebody else could take the reins,” Nemlowill said. “It doesn’t necessarily need to be the city. Maybe somebody who’s more focused on child care and not having to deal with a pool, and a cemetery, and 300 acres of parkland, and Astoria Column, a Chinese park and all that stuff.”
Community input
Sisson will present a master plan update at a City Council work session Monday night.
The community will also have the opportunity at three open houses next week to give feedback on the draft master plan:
- a public meeting from 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday at Fort George Lovell Showroom;
- a drop-in public input session from 7 to 10 a.m. Thursday at Street 14 Coffee;
- a drop-in public input session from 5 to 8 p.m. Saturday at Old Town Framing during the Second Saturday Art Walk.
Originally Published in The Daily Astorian
949 Exchange St.
Astoria, Oregon 97103
Phone: 503-325-3211