“It’s starting to look like a heck of a campground out there,” Parks Director Justin Huss told Parks commissioners at the May 16 meeting referring to progress at Lake Leatherwood City Park. He detailed improvements being made on cabins and campsites that are a steady revenue source for the park.
Huss added, however, that if the one-eighth-cent tax supporting the LLCP Master Plan is not renewed on June 13, Parks projects all over town “will come to a screeching halt… we’ll have to reprioritize.”
Chair Bill Featherstone called LLCP “Sixteen hundred acres of Ozarks natural beauty at its best, serving as the home to an 85-acre multi-purpose lake, 25 miles of diverse hiking and biking trails, an array of overnight lodging from primitive camping to air-conditioned cabins, recreational ball fields, and now Carroll County’s best playground.”
He said LLCP is the second largest city park in Arkansas, but it is larger than Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and Lincoln Park in Chicago and twice as large as Central Park in New York City. It offers .78 acres per citizen, which he claimed is “nearly ten times the park space for every one of us than the Top 100 city parks with the next best ratio.”
Featherstone said with all the recreational opportunities that come with having the park, there is also the “awesome responsibility of preserving, protecting and enhancing Eureka’s single greatest asset.” He said the LLCP Master Plan provides a long-term vision for taking care of the park, and citizens provided a financial stream for supporting that vision with the one-eighth-cent tax, but that tax sunsets this year unless it is renewed at the June 13 special election.
Featherstone said voting for the tax would mean paying an extra $1.25 for every $1000 spent in town. His arithmetic indicated a median household of 1.88 people would pay about $30 a year to support the progress being made at LLCP. Plus, visitors pay their share for the upkeep of the park. “Considering it is otherwise free to use Leatherwood, I’d say that’s just about the biggest bargain we could ever imagine.”
According to Featherstone, the results of passing the tax would touch all parts of the park. The dam would be maintained, the lake would be dredged and improved for fishing and boating, trails will be enhanced, ball fields improved, new pavilion built, a new handicapped-accessible bathhouse constructed, and Parks could keep up with infrastructure repairs.
Dog Park report
Rachel Brix, representing the Dog Park Committee, gave commissioners an update on Bark Park. She said locals and visitors bring their dogs to the park all day long. She said the park somehow made it onto a list of dog-friendly parks in the state.
Brix pointed out the park will be three years old in July, and there will be a celebration possibly on Friday, July 14, with more details to be announced. She said the committee has made steady progress on its five-year plan, and next on their list is installing two sets of steps to make the hillside in the small dog area easier to climb. The committee would also create a pathway along the top.
She also noted she has been able to replenish the committee after most of the original members moved away, and the new committee will pay more attention to online fundraising.
Final items
- Huss announced commissioner Jay Fitzsimmons resigned which leaves a vacancy on the commission.
- Huss said the Ozark Off Road Cyclists have done more trail work near Black Bass Lake.
- Termite damage at the Parks office will require removing the floor in Huss’ office and creating more space between the bottom of the floor and solid ground, then a new floor. Commissioners approved allocating $2000 from reserves to get the repair started.
- Commissioners also approved up to $2400 for vehicle repair on the truck Huss would use to get to the dam or for other emergencies at LLCP.
Next meeting will be Tuesday, June 20, at 6 p.m.