If only kids could vote on the city's next capital improvements package, it wouldn't even be close.
The $919.9 million proposal includes approximately $35 million for parks, and a big slice of that would go to construct five new aquatic centers and upgrade 24 of the city's 89 park playgrounds.
The aquatic centers would replace the city's five existing pools at Berry, Lacy, McClure, Reed and Whiteside parks. Penney, Reed and Lacy parks would also get new water playgrounds.
Park Director Lucy Dolman said the days of digging a hole and filling it with water are over for park systems. The aquatic centers would include zero-depth entries, slides, interactive water features and shaded areas.
"The new aquatic centers will add amenities that people have come to expect and enjoy instead of just a boring cement pond," she said. "You're going to have interactive features. It's going to be a place where a family could come and spend a day instead of dropping the kids off and picking them up an hour and a half later."
City officials have determined that constructing the new aquatic centers at a total cost of approximately $13 million makes more sense than pouring millions of dollars into upgrading and maintaining pools that are 40 to 50 years old.
"It's a better expenditure of money," said Dwain Midget, director of the city's Working in Neighborhoods department.
Dolman said the new playgrounds - about a half dozen of which have already been installed - would provide open, safe environments for children to play.
They would also serve a variety of ages, from toddlers to teens.
"Everything is visible and open with new challenges," Dolman said. "There may be climbing ropes and things like that instead of just your basic swing sets and slides."
Midget said the new playgrounds that have been installed - at Whiteside, Maxwell and Owen parks, for example - have been well received, "even in some areas where there was some skepticism about their utility."
Two parks - one new, one old and iconic - would receive substantial funding under the proposed package.
The city has begun preliminary work on Grace K. Cousins Park, at 121st Street and Yale Avenue, but the proposed $1.5 million in capital funding would help advance the project.
The funding would pay for water and sewer infrastructure, a 60-space parking lot, a train depot visitors center and other projects, including the planting of flowers, grass and native trees.
Dolman called the park a "natural area with whole different amenities" that would be operated in conjunction with the Oxley Nature Center.
Two years after city crews began working to stop erosion at Woodward Park, nearly $5 million has been included in the proposed capital improvement package to provide a permanent fix.
That includes landscaping, regrading slopes, replacing sandstone walls with limestone walls and renovating the park's stream and pond.
"We were trying to stop the bleeding. It was a Band-Aid," Midget said of the city's earlier work at the park. "Until we're able to get this kind of funding to do the work, it is hard for us to maintain.
"Otherwise, you would have seen orange plastic fence everywhere."
And thus the importance of the proposed capital improvement package, Dolman and Midget say.
"That's why every five years or six years we come back to the voters and say, 'Hey, here are the projects we want to try to implement in order to maintain and improve on the quality they have come to expect,'" Midget said.
Remaining town hall meetings
The City Council has approved a draft list of $919.9 million in capital improvement projects that it has been presenting to the public in town hall meetings. Councilors will use the input from those meetings to complete the list of projects before sending it to voters Nov. 12.
All are at 6 p.m. unless noted.
Monday: OU-Tulsa Schusterman Center Auditorium, 4502 E. 41st St.
Tuesday: Rudisill Regional Library, 1520 N. Hartford Ave.
Aug. 13: Carbondale Assembly of God, 2135 W. 51st St.
Kevin Canfield 918-581-8313
kevin.canfield@tulsaworld.com
Original Print Headline: Park upgrades sought
