The Owensboro Parks and Recreation Department is in the process of completing its first master plan since 2011. To do so, they are seeking public opinion on what the community would like to see regarding city parks in the coming years.
Director Amanda Rogers said the previous master plan was only designed for 2011-2015. Since then, the department has relied on occassional comments that have come in during meetings and emails when deciding where to make upgrades or repairs.
Rogers said this new plan would help the department have focus on specific goals and the steps to achieve them.
“[We’d] get that direct focus input from the community on what they see as needs and as wants — where their focus and interests are, where they think we need improvement, and where they think we’re succeeding,” Rogers said.
A community-wide survey will be released on June 5, but the Parks Department has also already sent 7,000 surveys to households for an early randomized sample pool.
She said using a randomly selected pool opens the door for people who do not avidly use the parks to provide input on why they don’t, plus say what it would take to get them to engage with the parks.
Rogers said her teams plans to treat the sample and open surveys as two separate groups with the same goal.
One of the comments they have already received during stakeholder meetings is working on communication from the Parks Department to the general public.
“I think trying to find mechanisms and ways to really spread the word and get it out there to everyone is something we need to do a little more due diligence on and make some additional efforts on,” Rogers said.
Aside from communication, Rogers said that one initiative she will continue through this master plan is raising accessibility in the parks. Efforts have been made to create activities for people in wheelchairs and people with disabilities, but she wants to provide more.
“I think as the world as a whole has learned how to define needs and situations for people, we’re seeing that growth in our community as well. I just think we’re seeing a growth in people that have some type of need. … We need to respond to that as well; we want to make sure that we can be inclusive of all of our citizens,” Rogers said.
With the indoor sports facility in the early stages of development, she said the survey will guide how the department makes decisions around the programming offered there.
Other projects on the slate right now are improvements to Moneta Sleet, Jr. Park, opening Cravens Pool next summer, and the irrigation of Hillcrest Golf Course.
