Longview residents weigh in on future of parks system

Residents participate in activities Monday organized by Stantec Consulting Services to gather public feedback to update the City of Longview Parks and Recreation Department's master plan.
Yoleyne Romero/News-Journal Photo

Longview News-Journal
Yoleyne Romero
March 28, 2023 at 04:53AM

Whitney Schubarth is a Longview resident with three children who actively use the city's many parks and trails. Being a park regular, she's come to notice some areas that need improvement and decided to use her voice Monday at the Parks and Recreation's Community Workshop.

The workshop was held to solicit feedback to update the Park's master plan and was held at Broughton Recreation Center which saw a decent crowd of residents file into one of facility's meeting rooms to participate. In September, the council approved a $50,000 contract with Stantec Consulting Services for the update.

Schubarth wanted to attend the event because she's invested in the growth of the community, she said.

"Between the parks and the trails and the playgrounds and all the different amenities that the city has to offer — I love living here so ... I want to see the continued maintaining of what we currently have but improvement upon (it)," she said. 

The meeting opened with Senior Principal of Stantec Mark Maldonado explaining what parks master plans do. It's primary purpose is to analyze the current state of Longview's parks, recreation and open spaces; identify needs and deficiencies in the system; and determine goals, recommendations and priorities for improving the system, he said.

Public parks have a number of benefits for the public including societal, physical and mental health, economic and environmental, he said. 

He detailed the firm's process to update the plan: the first step is a demographic assessment followed by site inventory assessment, then determining a vision and goals, next is to identify park classifications and standards, followed by a needs assessment, recommendations, priority determination, action items, implementation and finally seeking plan approval. According to Maldonado, the plan is currently in the third phase of determining a vision and goals.

He spoke of the importance of hearing from residents and said one of the ways to do so is by participating in a survey on the park's project website. The survey is one of three ways for residents to get involved and Maldonado's goal is to have at least 1,000 surveys completed by its close date of May 7, he said. 

The other two ways of engagement are the map feature and idea wall. The map of the city allows residents to drop a pin anywhere they'd like and make a comment or suggestion about the spot. The idea wall lets residents post notes and comments with ideas for the parks system and can engage with others' comments and like or dislike them.

The project website also has a feature that translates the pages, survey, and all other aspects to any language for easy-of-access, he said.

Maldonado rounded out the presentation by explaining the exercises set up in the back for residents to participate in. The first was a station with four jars that had corresponding labels that read: Upgrade equipment at existing parks; improved maintenance and operations at parks and facilities; development of new parks and recreational facilities; and develop/improve trails and trail connections. Each resident would be given a bag with 10 coins which they would then choose to place in whichever jar corresponded with what they'd like to see more of. The budgeting exercise was meant to gauge how residents would spend funds and on what items.

Another exercise had residents write a six-word story and place it on a white board. Meant to mimic a newspaper headline, the story asked residents to write a brief narrative vision for the city's parks and rec system in the year 2040.

Yet another exercise provided three different colored sticky notes with the prompt: How would you improve existing parks, recreation and open space? Three categories were on on the board that asked what amenities residents would like to see added to existing parks, what existing park needed the most improvements and what was the greatest challenge issue facing existing parks. Residents could write down a response for reach question on the different sticky notes and place them underneath each category.

The fourth exercise saw each resident given 3 sticky dots to place beside a number of listed park amenities that included things like disc golf, playgrounds, dog parks, trails, water recreation and more. Residents were told to place the dots next to their top three preferred park amenities.

As people got up to participate, the boards begin to fill with sticky notes and dots and residents conversed amongst each other about what they wanted to see.

For Schubarth, she wants to see more public restrooms, increased trail safety and continued maintenance, she said. With three kids, the need for more restrooms is always welcome at playgrounds she said. As an active runner, she'd like to run on the trails but has safety concerns, she said.

"The trails are unbelievably dark, they're very scary and some of the land is not in the safest of spaces," she said.

In other trail systems she's seen better lighting, police call buttons and more so those are some of the things she wrote in her suggestions, she said.

Hudson Johnson is the co-owner of Greenside Beverage Co. in downtown Longview. He attended the event after hearing about it through a city alert, he said.

"I care about our city and the parks we’re putting forth yeah, I mean I love the idea of connectivity," he said. 

He thinks the idea of walkability and connected trails is great for residents and a different way to get around without having to drive, he said. He believes the workshop was important because the community needs to express what they do and don't need, which includes residents from every part of the city, he said.

"I think you see small businesses and local businesses and community flourish when you have a walkable community that’s really connected, I mean there’s so many benefits there," he said. 

To take the survey and provide feedback visit LongviewTexas.gov/ParksMasterPlan.