PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County Memorial Field in downtown Port Townsend is the county’s facility most in need of access, safety and irrigation improvements — to the tune of about $1 million, parks and recreation workers say.
How can a county with a declining general fund and a maintenance backlog of about $4 million come up with such money, while maintaining 24 parks and other facilities, such as an aging Port Townsend Recreation Center?
Matt Tyler, county Parks and Recreation manager and volunteer parks and recreation advisory committee representatives hope to come up with the answers — with county residents’ help — during four November town meetings in Quilcene, Chimacum, Port Ludlow and Port Townsend.
“We want this to lead to an action plan,” Tyler said about the Parks, Recreation and Open Spaces Plan now being created.
“We want to see action in 2010.”
“We need to do this planning project, so we can be good stewards of our parks and programs, now and in the future,” said Trevor Huntingford, advisory committee member.
“The public has a very, very real opportunity to shape the future.”
Memorial Field
The county Parks and Recreation Department’s top priority is Memorial Field, a facility built in the 1940s.
It has no automatic irrigation system, is in need of regrading, has dangerous grandstands with rusting ceiling beams and has tiny team rooms and showers.
The field’s perimeter fence needs repair.
Repairs would cost $1 million, according to the department’s staff.
The field is widely used by Port Townsend and Chimacum school districts for student sports events, including football and soccer.
“Believe it or not, that field has never been rebuilt,” Tyler said.
“If you go into the grandstands, you will notice they are no longer up to building or safety codes.”
Committee member Trevor Huntingford said Parks and Recreation is in serious trouble because of recent funding cuts.
“There is a very real need for the people of the county to come out to our meetings and share with us what they want and how we should pay for it.”
Options to consider
The options that need serious consideration, as Tyler and others see it, are:
• Consolidation of services and programs, and more partnership with the city of Port Townsend, Jefferson County and public school districts.
• More public-private partnerships such as an “adopt-a-park program.”
• Keeping all parks and facilities open, but reducing services such as maintenance in some places.
• Close or sell off park lands, and end some recreational programs.
A metropolitan parks district, a proposal to form a taxing district to support parks and recreation program, is an idea that has come and gone in Jefferson County, but that could be considered again, Tyler said.
“But that, in no way, is a foregone conclusion in hard economic times,” he adds.
Another option is allowing Fort Worden State Park to absorb North Beach County Park at Kuhn Street in Port Townsend, and Fort Flagler State Park to add on East Beach County Park on Marrowstone Island.
Not enough money
In 2009, Tyler projects it will cost $539,000 to provide adequate parks and recreations programs in the county.
The Parks and Recreation Department is budgeted $326,176 for 2008. That’s $59,500 less than in 2007.
“Tax money is going down, so we’d like to plan ahead for the future and find a way to serve people as best as we can,” Tyler said.
The county has 1,070 acres of park land, 9.4 miles of county shorelines and 8.2 miles of trails and facilities.
Most popular park
H.J. Carroll Park in Chimacum, at 40 acres, is the most popular of the county parks.
“It is the only public athletic facility” in eastern Jefferson County, Tyler said, adding that it draws users from as far away as Quilcene to the south and Gardiner, west.
“It’s in the best shape, is the newest.”
The park was built in 1999-2000 and, as Tyler said, “We’ve continued to build it up and improve it.”
The park’s land was donated by the Carroll family of Port Ludlow and Port Townsend.
In uptown Port Townsend, the Recreation Center is the only public gym outside of the schools in the eastern part of the county.
Also built in the 1940s, Tyler said, “It has also gone beyond its useful life.”
Well-used
Use and volunteer support is not in short supply, however.
More than 80 partner organizations use the county parks and recreation facilities.
More than 1,800 households are registered in parks and recreation programs, with one to three children per family, Tyler said.
That translates to between 3,000 and 4,000 program users county-wide.
“They are people who use the recreation center, summer camps and sports leagues,” Tyler said.
“This does not include school sports programs that use Jefferson County Memorial Field in downtown Port Townsend.
“They also rent such facilities as H.J. Carroll Park in Chimacum for family events.”
Volunteers, employees
Tyler figures there are 175 volunteers, but he is always recruiting more. He figures their time is worth an average of $15 an hour.
Such a group of volunteers is building a fireplace at East Beach County Park on Marrowstone Island.
“The main thing is, we can’t do everything with volunteers,” he said, adding that there is still the cost of materials and other expenses.
Tyler is the park system’s only manager, and he is one of nearly eight full-time employees.
The parks and recreation staff has four full-time employees and nearly four more work part-time seasonally, some coach, referee or direct recreational programs, others maintain park facilities.
Meeting format
Each town meeting will feature a brief presentation on the symptoms facing Parks and Recreation, and small work groups called study circles.
Each study circle will have a facilitator who has been trained in dynamic facilitation by Port Townsend resident Jim Rough.
Comments will be documented and used to help create the new Parks, Recreation, and Open Space Plan.
Another set of follow-up town meetings will be conducted in January, said Tyler.
All options are on the table.
“This is not the kind of planning effort where the decisions have been made in advance” said Bill Tennent, advisory committee member.
“We are starting with a blank slate. All we know is, we need to plan for the future.”
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
