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
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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