Parks director spells out big picture

Kirby Neumann-Rea/News-Register##An all-abilities playground was built this year at Jay Pearson Park with help from the McMinnville Kiwanis Club.

New details about the future of McMinnville recreation and possible uses for an expected bond measure were revealed at a recent Planning Commission work session.

Parks and Recreation Director Susan Muir discussed the next steps for the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Master Plan (aka PROS) last month, describing it as more than a way to plan for future parks.

“It’s really a systematic plan for parks and recreation,” she said.

The plan uses “concept dollar amounts” for approximately $80 million worth of projects over the next 20 years, including $13.6 million in projects in the first five years, which will be funded in part by an estimated $9 million through the city’s planned Culture, Parks and Recreation bond expected next May.

“We have combined four elements into the potential bond,” Muir said. “It’s a new recreation center to replace the existing aquatic center and community center, either an addition to, or a new library up at Upper City Park, a small update and refresh of the Senior Center.”

The PROS plan used extensive public outreach, including 3,733 survey respondents, focus groups with stakeholders and 11 meetings with city boards. The result is an emphasis on equity, both in park access and city programming, and a need for improvements to many aging parks, Muir said.

“Something that we’re trying to get better at is really embracing different cultures and a lot of that relates to our programming,” she said, citing the recent joint effort of Parks and Rec and the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Advisory Committee to host an event for Juneteenth. “That’s what Parks and Rec does and we need to think better about how we partner with different cultures to be able to serve those communities and have those community events.”

That effort will include “culturally specific communications” over simply translating city documents and promoting DEI throughout the department, such as by offering classes with cultural themes.

“We might offer a class and get no registrations for it, but we’ll keep offering it and see if we can get to the right people to participate in things,” she said.

Accessibility will also be emphasized, both in park planning and opportunities for special needs children, such as the current adaptive swim program. Going forward, each park will have some accessibility component for special needs users, Muir said.

Improvements to older parks was a key issue identified through public engagement and the PROS plan could mean several new park elements around the city, such as a planned non-motorized boat launch and potential amphitheater and all-weather sports field.

“We really need to reimagine our older parks,” Muir said. “We have a lot of playgrounds that are out of compliance, we have a lot of safety issues. When we run into a problem with a piece of play equipment, our solution to fixing it is usually pull it out and so we end up with a blank spot in a park.”

“When you have something like that, people feel a little less ownership of it.”

Muir addressed other needs for current parks such as improved maintenance, lighting and bathroom options.

The city spent approximately $175,000 on a public Loo restroom at Jay Pearson Park and will look to incorporate the facilities at other parks, she said.

“We need some restrooms, public restrooms in McMinnville,” she said. “And we also need to be smarter about those.”

The Loo has “crime prevention through environmental design,” featuring unwelcoming cold metal and open air so outside people can see if it is in use, Muir said.

“There’s two things you can do in that bathroom and that’s all you can do,” she said. “We have a challenge keeping the other restrooms safe and see a lot of breaking into restrooms and a lot of bad activity ... just because it’s a place where there’s no eyes, nobody watching them. So we know we need to be smarter about the way we develop those.”

The department received calls from residents over the Loo price tag, but the public underestimates the wear and tear the facilities need to sustain, Muir said.

“Part of what we don’t do a very good job of is talk about how much use and how industrial our amenities have to be,” she said. “They just absolutely have to withstand things that we can’t even imagine people would do in public spaces.”

Muir touched on other plans, such as more shade trees in areas like Joe Dancer Park and increased year-round activities, potentially through partnerships in the community.

“When the school district put their all-weather sports turf in it became the most popular place for people to try and get and practice sports, so much so that they’ve had to really secure it so people don’t use it 24 hours a day,” she said. “It just illustrated for us how important that is and it’s missing from our community.”

The city may pursue a partnership to install an illuminated sports park with an all-weather surface at the planned rec center, she said.

The city will continue partnership discussions with the McMinnville School District to provide more access to amenities that have been locked since the Covid pandemic, she said.

“The problem has been, really since Covid, they’ve locked their facilities,” she said. “Cowls tennis courts is the perfect example, both Linfield (University) and the school district locked their courts when Covid happened. We instantly lost our inventory of tennis courts in McMinnville.”

The city and school district have been meeting to discuss a range of issues and the next planned meeting will focus on facilities, she said.

“We work pretty well on our buildings together with them and I think there’s a lot more opportunity in our outdoor spaces for partnering on things,” she said.

The next step for the PROS plan will be a joint work session with the Planning Commission and City Council on Oct. 22 to discuss long term planning issues.