Chelan Parks Vision 2030 Plan takes root at council meeting

CHELAN—Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Director Paul Horne delivered the second and third pillars of the Chelan Parks Vision 2030 Plan to the city council at its April 23 bi-monthly meeting. The three pillars are 1. Exemplary Parks (Places), 2. Engaged Community (People), and 3. Operational Sustainability (Organization). 

Horne discussed the first pillar at the previous council meeting and included Places:

• Destination playgrounds
• Promenades and boardwalks
• Outdoor amphitheaters
• Marina
• Lakeside Park Land and Water Conservation Grant
• RV park and golf course
• Trails and greenways

Engaged Community

“This focuses on community engagement as an end in itself,” said Horne, “not as a means to an end.”

Horne said his department is launching its new recreation software to help keep citizens engaged in recreation informed, allow online registration and payment, sign up for newsletters, and more. The new software will also free up staff from some of those functions.

“Design meetings, planning meetings…we’ve always had good turnout for these,” said Horne. “People care about their parks.”

The Parks Department has been working with SCJ Alliance to produce a Parks and Recreation Open Space (PROS) Plan. The PROS Plan provides a strategic roadmap for the parks system for the next six-year Capital Improvements Projects (CIP) cycle. These plans are typically updated every six years, and much has happened in Chelan in the eight years since the adoption of the 2016 plan. 

In June 2023 the city council approved the SCJ Alliance Professional Services Agreement for the Parks and Recreation System Master Plan Project. The following month council reviewed the Parks and Recreation Open Space (PROS) Plan survey questions. An administrative report was issued on Feb. 27 this year and later approved it on April 9.

Horne previewed the 43-page Chelan Parks Vision 2030

“Out of our last strategic retreat we heard that recreation is vital to the community,” said Horne. “It’s a core part of the Parks and Recreation mission…and we want to step that up.”

Horne noted that park signage is currently on the minimal side and needs more work.

“We have 13 capital projects on the books for 2024 representing $2.7 million,” said Horne. “We’ve done a great job of getting grants in.”

Parks has also been good at introducing new trees to the system.

“We planted four different species of trees to add variety and diversity to the (Don Morse) park,” Horne said.

Those were installed in fall 2022 and include:

• Forest Pansey Redbud – A flowering deciduous with brilliant scarlet-purple spring blooms, maturing to maroon.
• Kentucky coffeetree – A pest-free, pollution-tolerant deciduous that bears leathery, reddish-brown seed pods.
• Dawn Redwood - A deciduous, not evergreen, with striking golden-orange fall foliage. Thought to be extinct for millions of years, it was later rediscovered in China.
• Pin Oak - A deciduous native of Illinois with russet to red fall color.
• American Hornbeam - A small, deciduous tree with leaves that are a reddish-purple shade in the spring, shift to dark green in summer, and turn yellow to orange-red in the fall.

Horne added the Hornbeam in response to a Mirror inquiry about the varieties that were planted. All the newcomers seem to like their Chelan home.

“They all look healthy and seem to be doing well,” Horne said.

Urban foresters have advised Horne that, with some additional steps, Don Morse would have enough diversity to reach the threshold of being considered an arboretum.

Expanding on the arboretum threshold, Horne said that one of the criteria for reaching arboretum status is having a minimum of 25 unique tree species. 

“While seeking official arboretum status for the RV Park or Don Morse Park is not a priority at this time, we will continue to add variety to our tree mix for patron’s enjoyment, and for the ecological benefits of avoiding a monoculture,” Horne said.

They were planted in the fall 2022 Arbor Day celebration. 

“We’ll have our celebration this year again in the fall,” added Horne. “While Arbor Day is officially in the spring, planting trees in the fall seems to be the best practice.”

Operational Sustainability

“We have 13 capital projects on the books for 2024 representing $2.7 million,” said Horne. “We’ve done a great job of getting grants in.”

Preparing for the unexpected is as important as planning for the expected.

“We’ve had growing revenue for the last four years with the exception of 2020 when we were forced to close the RV for Covid,” said Horne. “We lost about $500,000 that year.”

To weather such setbacks, the Capital Reserve Fund serves as a tree reserve fund to provide funds for grant matches and to capitalize on targets of opportunities as they arise.”

Mike Maltais: 360-333-8483 or michael@ward.media