Want better parks? Speak up

PALMER — What do you want your neighborhood park to look like? Do you want monkey bars? A dog park? Maybe a dirt track on which to ride your bicycle?

The city wants to hear from you.

Palmer’s director of Parks and Recreation, Beth Skow, said she plans to hold a series of meetings regarding all seven of Palmer’s parks. First up is the park on Daron Drive in the Greatland Terrace Subdivision behind McDonald’s. The meeting is Thursday from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Palmer Train Depot.

Next month the city will meet with residents to discuss a park in Brittney Estates. An exact date hasn’t been set. Interested residents should watch for a postcard in the mail.

City Manager Bill Allen said he’s excited residents will have a chance to give their two cents.

“This has never been done before,” Allen said.

Skow said her plan is to develop a program through which local residents can rate their neighborhood parks. It’s an idea already used in Anchorage, but which Skow thinks will translate well to all seven of Palmer’s parks.

The plan, Skow said, is to get a list of what needs to be fixed and what upgrades the community would like to see. With any luck the city will make all the fixes immediately and then Skow will work to secure grants for upgrades.

As for the first open house meeting, Skow said the park on Daron Drive is little more than a sandbox and some picnic tables. But the community really seems to love that sandbox, so it’s likely to stay.

She said she’s also heard from mothers who spend a lot of time at the Palmer A-Moose-Ment Park. They want to spruce the place up.

“They said, ‘If you come up with a date, we’ll help,’” Skow said. And so they did. On April 16, she said, a group of people turned out, picked up trash and learned how to remove graffiti using sandpaper.

“They said they were going to start carrying sandpaper in their baby bags,” Skow said.

A-Moose-Ment is, to say the least, a very well-used park. Skow said that every day when school lets out she heads to the park to talk to teenagers who hang out there. Right now, she said, those kids are using space designed for very young children.

She wants to “see what we can do to give them their own space.”

Skow said she’s also working on plans to install message boards at various public sports fields, replace the nets at the city’s tennis courts and just generally spruce up the city’s parks, all while keeping abreast of what city residents want.

But does it ever get tiring to attend all those meetings? Skow said it doesn’t. Indeed, it’s what she likes best about her job.

“The beauty of my role is getting out there and talking to people,” she said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.