Parks board is ready to move projects forward

"I think we need to do something right now. As far as I know Davis Park is stuck in limbo; and at this point, I think we need to get an architect," Jim Novak, parks board president, said during Wednesday night's regular monthly meeting.

He said that the $150,000 currently available will not build as much of an enclosed shelter as it would have done six months or a year ago.

Novak, frustrated by the lack of progress on the enclosed shelter house and the other parks capital improvement projects that have been hold for the past two years, told the park board that he had seriously considered resigning from the board because of the lack of progress that he had pushed for during his first year as parks board president.

Novak, who was re-elected the board's president Wednesday, expended a lot of effort during his first year in that office, trying to get the enclosed shelter house completed. The shelter is left over from the projects to be completed with the first 1/2 cent parks sales tax passed by voters in 2000.

"I don't like the fact that we didn't get more done during my first year as president. I'm going to be pushing on everything very hard. I don't care whose toes I step on. These projects need to get done. We can't stand in quicksand anymore and watch our money shrink," Novak said.

During the last two years all that has been done by city is to hire a draftsman to draw plans for a shelter house and to pile $8,000 worth of dirt in Davis Park. Unfortunately the draftsman, who has since died, was not a licensed architect and according to city codes the plans must be stamped by an architect before the facility can be built and one cannot just go out shopping for an architect to stamp a set of plans.

Now the parks board must start over with another architect, which will delay the start of the project further and add to the cost of the final project, which has already cost more than $8,000, with only a pile of dirt to show for the money.

Wednesday the parks board voted 5-0 to restart the project by requesting the City Council give them permission to start the process of hiring the necessary architectural/engineering services to build the enclosed shelter house. Jim Novak, Gina Cripps, Shirley Ann Bastow, Marci Pritchett and Jeff Post all voted yes.

The board also voted 5-0 to request permission from the city council to publish a request for proposals for the Twin Lakes Park athletic fields.

The parks board already has plans for this project and needs to have a company primarily to do the dirt work on the fields.

"We want some type of fields for next year," Novak said.