Parks board striving to create master plan

By ALEX STRICKLAND / Bigork Eagle

There are almost 100 parks in Flathead County, though you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone who could name — much less find — them all.

That is part of the reason the Flathead County Parks, Recreation, Weeds and Building Maintenance Board is pushing to create a first-ever parks master plan.

They've held a series of meetings, including one last Thursday in Bigfork, to discuss the formation of the plan that would help prioritize and guide the future management of county-operated parks.

"We want to get a grip on what's out there and what people want to do with them," said Jim Watson, a member of the County Parks Board.

Watson said that of the 90 or so dedicated parks in Flathead County, only 30 are maintained and that the bar for maintenance is "pretty low."

"In general we cut the grass and take the garbage out," he said.

Bigfork, for instance, has a few parks that most residents are most likely completely unaware of, such as Lakehills Park and Swan River Retreat — a tiny access to the Swan River at the end of a road near Ferndale.

Kate McMahon, the Project Coordinator who works for Applied Composites Engineering in Whitefish, said that the need for a comprehensive plan is increased by the drastic increase in parks usage in the last few years.

Lone Pine, in Kalispell (a state park), served about 20,000 people in 2003, she said. Through August of this year there had already been about 46,000 users. The city of Kalispell estimates a 15-20 percent increase in usage for its parks, she said.

Along with the increase in usage that logically follows from the valley's rapid growth, comes a change is both demographics and expectations. McMahon said that as large numbers of baby boomers and retirees move to the area, the Parks Board must factor in the changing uses. People moving in from more urban or developed areas also bring with them an "expectation for a higher level of service" in their parks, according to Watson.

To help facilitate the creation of the plan by tapping into local knowledge, advisory boards have been set up around the county, and Bigfork's board was on hand during the meeting with a set of display boards outlining their thoughts on future uses and ideas for Bigfork's parks. Some of those ideas included working to resolve parking and scheduling issues at Carlyle Johnson park on Highway 83 and improving facilities at Potoczny Park.

Though the parks budget is relatively modest, the department is the recipient of "cash-in-lieu" funds from developers that do not dedicate parks space in their subdivisions. The board has hoarded some of that money and is currently pursuing the purchase of Stillwater Christian School gymnasium, Watson said. That purchase would add a gymnasium to the county parks roster and provide what Watson called a "buffer" in case the lease for Kalispell's Conrad Complex becomes impossible to maintain.

The Conrad Complex, which contains all sorts of athletic fields and other facilities in Kalispell, recently went from a $1-per-year, 40-year lease to a 3-year lease at $15,000 per year. Watson said that the Parks Board is interested in pursuing parks that the county can own rather than rent, citing the potential waste of huge amounts of donated time and money that have been spent upgrading infrastructure at the Conrad Complex over the years.

While funding will likely remain an issue, Watson did say that the parks board endorses the $10 million conservation bond that will be on voters' ballots in the November election. Watson said that the money could go a long way to helping purchase lands for water access and trail easements, two high priorities for the board. Not only that, Watson pointed out that a similar measure in Gallatin County in Southwest Montana was leverage at an eight-to-one ration in grant money and other matching funds that are available for various projects.

Another potential funding mechanism that McMahon and Watson pointed to was selling some of the county's park land that is isolated or unusable. The pair said that in years past much of the land given for parks by developers was chosen because it was on an unsuitably steep slope or in a wetland area. Those qualities make some plots nearly worthless no matter who owns them, but McMahon said that a thorough inventory could turn up parcels that could be sold.

As for creating more parks, no one thinks it will be easy and in Lakeside, for example, recent feelers put out about a possible park on Flathead Lake elicited a slew of comments from neighbors not excited about the prospect of a public park next door.

"It's impossible to put a park anywhere that's not someone's backyard," said Sharon Hopkins, a member of the Bigfork Parks Advisory Committee. "It's not like it used to be."

The Bigfork committee meets on the last Thursday of each month at 4 p.m. in the basement of Glacier Bank.

For more information on the Flathead County Parks Master Plan or to take a survey that the project leaders are hoping to use for public input, visit the Parks and Recreation Department Web page at http://flathead.mt.gov/parks_rec/.