Seaside has a number of large regional and community parks including beach and lakes.  Of particular interest to residents are the small neighborhood parks which exist in every Seaside neighborhood except "Terrace."

The City wanted to shut down and sell a number of these parks in the late 1990s to get a quick cash infusion.  I am proud to have taken the lead on preserving the Wheeler Street tennis courts at the planning commission level.  This successful action discouraged the City from attempting to close any other parks.

More recently, the City completely refurbished those courts and they are now a source of pride for the Mayor, Council and the residents of Seaside.

Unfortunately, virtually all other Seaside parks are in dire need of maintenance.  City staff has successfully sought grants to improve the situation in certain “specialty” parks, but substantially more needs to be done to ensure a bright future for parks in the City.

Recreation programs need a similar shot in the arm.  Please see the Youth and Education and Seniors pages for more complete discussion of recreation issues.

Proposed Solutions:

Let’s consider hiring a grant writer to take full advantage of all parks and recreation related grants.  Such grants exist at the Federal, State and local level and are at best only partially tapped.

Improve citizen involvement by focusing first on one major park overhaul.  This should be targeted at the park that is most visible and serves the largest possible number of residents.  [The Patullo swim center remodel a few years back was similar in concept but was partially botched through picking a poor contractor.  This resulted in cost and schedule overruns which led to poor confidence in the City and extended lack of an important facility.]

Developers and contractors who give a certain level of no or low cost assistance to the City on parks improvements could have their future projects fast tracked at no additional cost.  Perhaps certain development fees could also be reduced in proportion to such contractors' participation in parks improvement.  This plan could have the simultaneous impact of hastening parks improvement while stimulating housing and commercial development.

 

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