Marble Falls parks discussion raises usage and cost questions

Marble Falls city leaders and municipal personnel have launched an effort June 15 to balance the needs of longtime festivals and events in parks with concerns about protecting millions of dollars in investments from upgrades and improvements to those facilities.

Within the past five years, facilities and venues in Johnson Park, Lakeside Park and Westside Park have undergone the beginning stages of renovation projects.

Since 2019, parks officials advocated and received approval from Marble Falls City Council for increased fees (See related story on page 1).

Also, new rules have developed, including limits to proximity to trees and structures, requests to minimize RVs, trailers and personal vehicles near pavilions and away from upgraded irrigation features.

“As we worked through our maintenance items and how we wanted our parks to improve, we started talking about how we needed those events to interact in our parks,” Parks and Recreation Director Lacey Dingman told council members during the workshop. “It also seems there’s a desire expressed at some points along the way that we wanted to continue to improve the status of our parks just for our general community.”

Dingman explained when she joined the city staff in December 2019, she started to drive a conversation outlined in the city’s 2017 Parks Improvement Plan about improvements which prompted work such as repairs of irrigation issues, turf grass enhancements and tree preservation.

“Obviously, the other major asset we have in Johnson Park is our tree canopy and most of that being pecan trees that are, if not, more than 100 years old and trying to preserve that resource there,” she said.

As a result, the parks and recreation department has expanded the number of staff, equipment, resources and maintenance and repair schedules. Fertilization, herbicide schedules were implemented as well.

She introduced Parks Superintendent Scott Bush, who was hired about a year ago to oversee maintenance, including the general park spaces and ball and soccer fields.

“We wanted to outline where we were moving towards,” Dingman said. “We’ve asked our major users – the chamber with Mayfest and Lakefest and then (CASI-sponsored) Howdy Roo (Chili Cookoff) – how we could work together to kind of change our behavior in the park and balance that with our improvements that we’re trying to make.”

Requests from the parks department included limiting driving to the “overflow parking,” which is the space utilized by the carnival during the chamber’s Mayfest event as well as for parking during other activities.

Two large events which rely on setting up camp sites with and without trailers as well as vehicles throughout the park include the chamber’s Lakefest drag boat races which serves as a “pit” area for competitors and their teams and the cookoff which allows for several RVs and mobile cooking facilities on the grass at the venue.

“The desire and the history of all these events is to be up around the pavilions, up under the tree canopy,” Dingman said. “It’s obviously in the heart of the park, but we’ve started asking people to transition to making that traffic (on grass) be on-foot, tents, tables and not vehicles driving through the park.

“That certainly has caused some concerns for those users,” she added. “There’s obviously some of those events that can not completely move all vehicles out of that area given the size of their events.”

In 2017 Parks Master Plan, Johnson Park was deemed as a dedicated “festival park,” so workshop attendees debated how to accommodate those non-attending residents who want to use the venue for its playscapes and access to Backbone Creek.

An outcry about the loss of potential events, such as the Howdy Roo CASI Chili Cookoff, prompted

Mayor Richard Westerman to meet with organizers planning its 50th-year anniversary event.

Concerns culminated with the workshop to bring together personnel, the city council and parks and recreation committee members for solutions.

“We want to be a friendlier, gentler city when it comes to these sorts of events,” Westerman said. “Howdy Roo, in particular, is just one of those events.

“They kind of belong to the heart and soul of our community. They felt like they were getting pushed out – not that that was the intention,” he added. “My initial conversation is that our parks our our event center. It’s gone through some changes.

“I just want to make sure we’re headed the right direction.”

Parks and recreation committee members in attendance included Charles Watkins and MaxAnn Copeland Jones.

“I think the sense of it is that we want an organized plan for dealing with the festivals,” Watkins said. “We understand their needs and that they’re being met in a systematic weigh.

“If that imposes on other things that we’re doing with the park, that’s a trade off that we have to way.”

Council member Bryan Walker inquired about changes which occurred in the past couple of years which fueled concerns from festival and event planners.

Dingman answered, “The difference is probably obviously new leadership coming in, and then also we made investments as far as 1A (parks improvement bond package). We poured some sidewalks that aren’t meant to be drove across.”

Councilman Reed Norman offered one potential consideration.

“The deal about being a certain distance from a tree, that kind of bothered me a little bit,” he said. “Mike (Hodge, city manager) had showed a picture where a limb had fallen.

“That’s going to happen,” he added. “I don’t know if we ever had a tree limb fall on a Howdy Roo trailer yet in the years that I’ve been here.”

Dingman suggested that future park projects may need to keep existing activities in mind when planning.

With upgrades including sidewalks and playground expansion, the goal was to avoid “a free-for-all parking plan throughout Johnson Park.”

“We need people to change their behavior for those large festivals, so we protect those investments,” Dingman said. “Certainly, there is a balance.

“We need to keep in mind for our future development projects that we come up with designs that are conducive to special events.”

Other suggestions – especially supported by councilmen Dee Haddock, Norman, Craig Magerkurth and the mayor – included the municipality’s consideration to develop the 12-acre Parkview Park, located just off Mormon Mill Road.

Also, Councilman Dave Rhodes suggested recommending to citizens concerned about their inability to utilize Johnson Park during festival events to utilize Westside Park, complete with a playscape, dog park, basketball court, walking trail, picnic tables, smaller pavilion and community room as well as a disc golf course.

As a result of the discussions, parks and recreation committee are expected to work with parks personnel to potentially update the 2017 Parks Improvement Master Plan.

“One good thing that came out of COVID … we exhausted quite a bit of resources and time to go back and fix all the repairs that have went un-repaired for years and really try to get that (the irrigation system) operational, so we can start looking at if we re-seed the grass and turf at Johnson Park will survive,” Dingman said. “Obviously large vehicles, driving on them, that intersects and doesn’t always mesh well, if we’re constantly chasing irrigation breaks.

“For example, this year Howdy Roo experienced quite a bit of rain and so it took us a couple of days to fix ruts and things like that after the event,” she said.

Norman suggested potential guards for the sprinklers. He added “an organized parking plat” to assist with an orderly site plan.

Due to concerns Dingman asked for direction from council members and the parks committee on “what would you like to see for Johnson Park” and the other park venues as well as “what would the council like to see as far as how festivals operate in the park.”