THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 13, 1994 TAG: 9411150549
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY PERRY PARKS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ELIZABETH CITY LENGTH: Medium: 78 lines
Parks and Recreation officials know they need to expand facilities and services. But they're counting on their customers to tell them where and how.
The department is paying a Wilmington consultant $14,000 to develop a master plan that will address the Elizabeth City area's changing recreation needs into the next century.
Public opinion will be the raw material for that plan.
``If we want to grow, we want to make sure that we grow in the areas that the residents and our citizens want us to grow in,'' Parks and Recreation Director Jim Overman said. ``We're hoping that this master plan will give us a priority, a list of priorities.''
The department is inviting residents of Elizabeth City and Pasquotank and Camden counties to talk about parks and recreation at meetings Monday and Tuesday nights.
Monday's meeting will be at the Knobbs Creek Recreation Center and Tuesday's at Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church. Officials chose two sites to reach ``a good cross-section'' of the community, City Manager Ralph Clark said.
``The validity of this plan depends on what kind of public response we can get,'' said Overman, who hopes 75 to 100 people show up for each meeting.
Residents also will receive surveys with their utility bills that seek preferences among a long list of possible services, Overman said.
The City Council gave the OK for a master plan during this spring's budgeting session. Council members had considered and rejected department requests for a half-million dollars in improvements - including $355,000 for an addition to the Knobbs Creek building - saying they weren't confident the changes would address area needs.
The council has discussed the need for more youth services and the possibility that money for new buildings should go to satellite facilities deeper in the community.
But council members working on the master plan process, including Myrtle Rivers and Lloyd Griffin, said this week that what is done will depend on what people ask for.
``At this meeting, it's gonna be the young, the old, the grandmothers and all,'' said Rivers, a vocal supporter of expanded recreation activities.
``Some of those opinions can be very valuable.''
``We're focusing on the overall growth of the city,'' said Griffin, another advocate of youth recreation activities. ``We're focusing on what areas of town might need to have more types of recreation available.
``Everyone has their own idea of what they want. . . . In the end, it's hopefully for the best of the whole community.''
Overman's department oversees 20 parks, ranging from the 30-acre Knobbs Creek center to the 1,200-square-foot Moth Boat park. Parks and Recreation also manages the senior center at Knobbs Creek, dozens of activities and athletic programs, and the contract for maintaining the city's eight cemeteries.
The department hopes to have the master plan finished by the end of March, so the information can be used in the 1995-96 budgeting session.
``We're just beginning the process with these two public meetings,'' said Howard Capps, a landscape architecht and land planner whose company is producing the master plan.
Capps, a former Elizabeth City resident who completed a similar plan for Edenton a couple of years ago, said the plan will base its recommendations on current facilities, public desires and national norms for similarly sized cities. ILLUSTRATION: Graphic
PUBLIC INPUT
Elizabeth City is holding two public meetings this week to get
input on what services the Parks and Recreation Department should
provide over the next 10 years.
Residents of the city and Pasquotank and Camden counties are
invited to the meetings, at 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Knobbs Creek
Recreation Center and at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at Cornerstone Missionary
Baptist Church. For details, call 338-3981, ext. 225.
by CNB