Brunswick reviews recommendations related to parks master plan

BRUNSWICK — The city is investing $1.2 million to make various park improvements in the near future. Designing Local Ltd. presented its recommendations to improve the city's parks and recreation department during the Brunswick Committee of the Whole meeting Monday. Matt Leasure from Designing Local said the firm met with stakeholders, had nearly 1,400 people respond to an online community survey and had almost 150 people attend community engagement sessions related to Brunswick's parks. "We look at a city the size of Brunswick and compare how other communities fund their parks programs, fund their staffing levels, that kind of thing," he said. "That was a really important process because one of the things that we started to discover was that some of the staffing levels were lower than comparable communities and some of the per capita funding was lower than comparable communities." Designing Local listed the following as the community's most requested improvements: Upgrades to the recreation center. Better aquatics facilities and programming. Improvements to parking and restrooms, especially at Hopkins Park and Mooney Park. New trails and walking paths. More pickleball opportunities. Improved sports facilities. More community events and nonsports programs. Then Designing Local developed the following overall recommendations for the city based on community input and the data it collected: Invest in staffing and volunteers. Make upgrades to amenities and accessibility at all parks and the recreation center. Ensure all parks, facilities and amenities are maintained on a timely basis. Expand the trail network within the city. Offer more events and programs for youths and families. Make it easier for community members to learn about what the parks and recreation department offers. Further the idea of developing a sports park in Brunswick. Expand the amount of resources available to maintain the parks and take on new projects. The recommendations also included potential options to enhance the recreation center. The first option consists of general upgrades. The second involves expanding the pool area for additional aquatics, while the third option would expand the recreation center for senior programming and indoor or outdoor pickleball courts. "The last option here is to do all those things with one big project," Leasure said. "Having one project is generally the most efficient way to do construction where you do it all at once, but that's not a small project." There are additional recommendations for every park in the more than 100-page master plan from Designing Local. It has not yet been decided what projects will be funded using the $1.2 million set aside for parks. "The whole process of how we go through that has not all yet been determined, but we're using this plan as the roadmap," Vice Mayor Nick Hanek said. "Some things are absolutely overdue, necessary, and we're thankfully in a financial position that we can start to have these conversations and think about it meaningfully and really implement changes." At open houses, the public was "open-minded" regarding how to fund future projects, Leasure said. The firm also provided general grant recommendations. Councilman-at-Large Joe Delsanter said future park improvements will have to be financially sustainable. "Having such a plan in place does enable us to pursue, for example, grant funding or budgetary funding," Hanek said. "We can show that we put some real thought and diligence into the background." Contact reporter Madisyn Woodring at (330) 721-4049 or mwoodring@medina-gazette.com.