10 Winter 2017 Applegater
Public Invitation
You are cordially invited to a special community meeting
of the Cantrall Buckley Park Committee.
Cantrall Buckley Park news
BY JEREMY CRISWELL
Hooray! The restoration of
our playground restroom is
complete! This long overdue
renovation is the final phase of
our playground restoration and
it looks great! The broken-down
wooden screening has been
removed, fresh access sidewalks
have been poured, and a new
gable end roof has been installed
just in time for winter. With a
fresh coat of paint, new tile, and
all new fixtures throughout, we
finally have a bright and sanitary
Jackson County Park Rangers Jonathon Bernhardt and
restroom to appropriately serve
Dustin Stafford at work on the day-use restroom.
our park users. The finishing
(Photo: Tom Carstens.)
touches will include an ADA
access path leading from the
playground to the restroom,
s e ve r a l b e n c h e s , a n d t h e
addition of native plants in the
surrounding planting beds.
With the bathroom
restoration now done, work
can resume on the Community
Mosaic Mural that we began
all the way back in 2015. Over
200 community members have
already made tiles for the project
and it is now time to get back
to work on bringing this mural
Tim Zacha, daughter Zyris, and son Zennon sign in as
to life. In the coming months,
volunteers at the SOLVE cleanup event
we’ll make the last of the tiles
at Cantrall Buckley Park. (Photo: Tom Carstens.)
and set them in concrete panels
that will be installed on the
river-facing wall of the restroom.
I’ll be looking for ways to pull
community members back in
for the last parts of this project,
so keep an eye out for chances to
get involved!
Keeping our beautiful park
beautiful, local community
volunteers participated in the
34 th Annual SOLVE Beach &
Riverside Cleanup, presented
by the Oregon Lottery, on
September 23, 2017. Cantrall
Buckley Park was one of the 130
sites for this statewide event,
and we had 13 adult and youth Winner! This photo of Tom and Kathy Carstens ready to
collect trash at the Cantrall Park cleanup event
participants.
was one of four winning pictures in
A big thank-you to our
SOLVE’s statewide photo contest
volunteers, who removed 30
for this event. (Photo: Janis Mohr-Tipton.)
pounds of trash, six truckloads
of invasive blackberry vines,
and two truckloads of dead branches and of SOLVE in cleaning up Oregon. The
debris from several areas of the park. Janis focus has changed since 1969, when
Mohr-Tipton organized the event and S.O.L.V. stood for Stop Oregon Litter and
provided snacks and a butterfly glider craft Vandalism. Today, the word SOLVE more
for the youth at the end of the work time. accurately reflects the actions of volunteers,
Janis also provided educational material like the ones in our community, to improve
from SOLVE (solveoregon.org) to show our park’s environment.
Jeremy Criswell
what native plantings can replace invasive
jerr37@jeffnet.org
blackberries. She also explained the role
Where: Applegate Valley Fire District Community Center,
1095 Upper Applegate Road, Ruch
When: Wednesday, December 13, 6 - 7:30 pm
What: 1. Learn directly from Jackson County Parks about plans for
management of Cantrall Buckley.
2. Find out what the Park Committee is planning.
3. Bring your own ideas for the future of the park!
Message from
Jackson County Parks
The following is excerpted from a letter dated October 31, 2017, to A Greater
Applegate from Jackson County Roads and Parks about the transition in the
management of Cantrall Buckley Park.
When GACDC [now A Greater Applegate] took over operations
of Cantrall Buckley Park, the Jackson County Parks program was at an
unprecedented crossroads where all funding for park operations was
removed from the county general fund budget. This change forced many
hard decisions regarding park management, one of which was the potential
closure of Cantrall Buckley.
Instead, GACDC stepped up to maintain and operate the park over the
past two decades. Fortunately, due to a series of changes within our parks
program, we are no longer at the level of crisis we were at 20 years ago and
are much more stable—not rich, but stable.
I share this brief background for two reasons. First, a big thank-you to
GACDC is in order for stepping up and operating the park while the county
sorted out its park program. GACDC provided a bridge for the county until
we reached the point where we can, and should, step back in and operate
the park, which we agree is a real gem. Second, I want to assure you that
discussions of closing the park are not going to resurface the first time we hit
a bump in the road. The park is safe, will stay open, and will be taken care of.
Steve Lambert will continue to be the point of contact for the county and
will lead the process to complete this transition from our end.
We look forward to working with you in a partnership role in the future
to continue to improve this special place.
John Vial
Director, Jackson County Roads and Parks
Carol
Milazzo
Debbie Tollefson
Don Tollefson
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