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About Keizertimes. (Salem, Or.) 1979-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 19, 2016)
PAGE A8, KEIZERTIMES, AUGUST 19, 2016 PARKS, continued from Page A1 He checks two different ar- eas of the park and fi nds some heads that need to be adjusted. Nothing that needs to be re- placed, but several of the heads are clearly limping along trying to perform their duty. The next stop is Keizer Rapids Park at the west end of Chemawa Road North. Past the main park entrance, the road turns to gravel with some additional parking areas for those choosing to enter the most heavily-wooded sec- tion. The gravel road has caught the attention of drivers looking to do doughnuts. That would be a problem in and of itself, but the vehicles have struck a fence separating the park from a quarry and it’s up to Johnson to attend to it. He takes photos of a half-dozen spots where the fence has separated from sup- port poles. “The reality is my guys don’t have time to take care of this, so I have to call a contractor and get them to fi x it,” Johnson said. More money disappears from his budget. Whenever Johnson visits a park, he tries to check in on all areas, so the trip includes a quick drive down an asphalt road leading deeper into the park. The roadway is pitted with deep potholes, one side of the road is bermed with bark chips, the other is slowly turning into a mess because off-road vehicles churned up mud during wet weather. There are already a couple of visitors parking and owners unloading canine friends. Despite adding the road to the list of things the parks crew is responsible for, no additional funding was at- tached. “We had a little money left over at the end of June so we bought some rock. We’ll use that to fi ll the holes and build up the side of the road, but all the problems are going to come back. We also got some free wood chips from a local business that we’ll use to build up berms in the areas where people are mudding,” Johnson said. “A cheap fi x is still a fi x, but it’s not exactly solving the problem.” A month and a half after purchase, both the gravel and the bark chips still sit in piles because the project hasn’t yet risen to the top of the prior- ity list. “There’s things that are higher up. And, at any time, someone can call us and we’ve got to drop everything we’re doing and go chase down an- other problem,” Johnson said. The busy season for the Keizer’s parks workers is April through September, which means the budget (July to June) lines up just about as poorly as it could. By the end of June, Johnson is counting every pen- ny and waiting for the solvency July brings. “It’s very challenging and oftentimes things need to wait,” he said. “We had a couple of trees that were growing in the park, but also into a neighbor’s yard – like 30 to 40 feet into her yard – enough that they were impacting her fruit trees and affecting her garden’s growth. She told me about it last year, but our tree money was long gone and it wasn’t a safety issue. I promised her that when the cycle started over she would be fi rst on our list, and we fi nally We are Everything Except Overpriced KEIZERTIMES/Eric A. Howald Keizer Parks Supervisor Robert Johnson surveys the amenities at Wallace Manor Park. got it done last month.” One of the future amenities for Keizer Rapids is a long and wide fi eld at the edge of the park bordering the Willamette River. Because current fund- ing can’t cover the costs of ir- rigation, the fi eld is currently a thigh-high tangle of brambles, blackberries and brown grasses. Plans also call for some covered picnic areas in the space, but even if the funding were avail- able tomorrow, it would take a while to rehabilitate the turf. “The thing is people are hungry for this space, I’ve got- ten call after call after call this summer from people hoping to reserve a picnic spot here and we don’t have anything to offer them,” Johnson said. “We don’t have anything to reserve down here other than the amphithe- ater.” Johnson’s interim fi x is mowing the grass closest to the woods as short as he can. It’s not attractive, but it reduces the chance of a fi re spreading to the wooded area. The primary mis- conception is that the park is fully developed and that’s fairly adrift from reality. Volunteer la- bor and local business support has installed everything from the amphitheater to The Big Toy to the dog park and sand volleyball courts, but the city hasn’t been able to contribute much more than the purchase of land for future development. “There’s also a problem in developing parks in stages rather than all at once. You are constantly running into issues that no one anticipated,” John- son said. Despite that, Johnson still fi nds ways to improve the parks priority. Regular mowing and a in ways that provide increased concerted effort to remove the safety as well as beautifi cation. invasive species have turned it For example, the front fence into a natural space that several of The Big Toy sits only about area residents walk through in 10 yards from the parking lot. the few minutes he spends on Johnson was concerned that a the site. He’s also checking on distracted driver might hit the some trees recently planted, a wrong pedal and go careening park neighbor is volunteering into the play to help water area. He built trees and main- up a two-foot “ The bathrooms tain the en- berm that will are needed, I trance. high-center a Most calls runaway car want them, but Johnson re- and populated I don’t have the ceives start as a it with a garden complaint, but of native plants. manpower to he usually ends Ideally, he’s maintain them.” up trying to hoping school enlist the caller groups that visit — Robert Johnson as a volunteer. the park use the “They have Parks supervisor space for edu- certain things cation while they want to they help pull weeds and do see done, and I usually have a some minor pruning. list ready to go, but we develop Next year, a grant will be the relationships and sometimes used to install a rubberized sur- the bigger projects result from face at The Big Toy, additional that,” he said. He wishes he had pedestrian pathways and the more time to spend working city’s fi rst fl ushing toilets in a with volunteers and enlisting park. It’s a double-edged sword. new ones. “The rubberized surface Eagle Scouts looking to is a huge benefi t because that complete community service means we don’t have to hassle with wood chips. The pathways are needed because right now we have moms with strollers fi ghting for the same space as cars. The bathrooms are need- ed, I want them, but I don’t have the manpower to maintain them,” Johnson said. Johnson’s next stop is Bair Park in north Keizer. Several years ago, the park was hardly usable. It had been overrun with a deep thicket of blackberries, but Johnson made the park a Award-Winning Authentic American BBQ Now 2 Locations 1210 State Street 503-362-2194 2505 Liberty St NE 503-689-1082 Give your home the Simple Cremation $795 Encore Treatment Inexpensive Burial and Funeral Options W INDOWS & D OORS [S HOWER D OORS ] M IRRORS & S KYLIGHTS C USTOM T ABLE T OPS Pre-Planning Available On-Site Crematory 4365 RIVER RD N, KEIZER 503.393.7037 Se habla español VISIT OUR SHOWROOM 1450 Front St - Salem 503.581 .2559 www.encoreglass.co Encore Glass CCB #196078 requirements are some of his favorite people. Scouts have helped refurbish a shelter and a bridge at Bob Newton Park in the Gubser neighborhood, which is Johnson’s next stop. Newton Park is a decent ex- ample of the kinds of sacrifi ces made in Keizer parks. Johnson would like to see better weed control, landscaped entrances, a pair of horseshoe pits could be rehabbed, and then there’s the tennis court. The court surface has one crack running its en- tire length and it’s beginning to branch. “This surface is still playable, but it needs attention. We need to fi ll those cracks because, right now, the water is still get- ting in. If enough water gets in, the foundation is going to settle unevenly and make the whole thing unusable,” he said. Resurfacing the court would cost about $8,000 to $10,000. Ripping it out and starting over, which is what will have to happen if it settles, would cost $60,000. One of the many things that gets lost in the struggle to sim- ply maintain what currently exists in Keizer parks is beau- tifi cation. “I would love to have all the entries bark dusted and land- scaped, but we simply can’t afford it and it means there’s no curb appeal,” he said. “If someone moves here and they decide to go to a park, they’re going to get in the car, drive around and then make a deci- sion whether to get out at each place they stop. They might go from Keizer to Salem before they pull the trigger.” The fi rst complaint call of the day comes in about 8 a.m. Someone visited The Big Toy the night before and found fe- ces in one of the turrets. The origin was unknown, but it meant Johnson had to stop what he was doing and fi nd someone in the vicinity of the park who could go check on it. Fortunately, Shelton was just fi nishing his repairs on the dog park leak. While complaints come in from all over the city, one park has become so high-main- tenance that Johnson has to schedule one of his two season- al workers around its operation – Chalmers-Jones Park and the splash fountain. “I basically lost a seasonal worker,” Johnson said. “Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing like seeing 30 kids out there on a hot day, but it requires a lot of attention. Every time something goes wrong, he’s out here fi xing it and, when he’s not doing that, he’s handling reservations. He also has to get everything tested and ready to go each morning it’s open, he’s barely able to get away to do some of the other things that need doing.” The current budget only allows Johnson to tackle one major project a year, this year it will be repaving the parking lot at the south end of Claggett Creek Park. Last year, it was re- surfacing a tennis court at Wil- lamette Manor Park in south Keizer. That tennis court had gotten so bad that most of the con- tractors Johnson asked for bids wouldn’t touch it without start- ing over. He eventually found one who would, and the new surface is smooth, green, invit- ing and has a new use as well. Please see PARKS, Page A9