{"id":105809,"date":"2016-04-07T19:33:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T01:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-parks-users-want-softball-trail-improvements\/"},"modified":"2016-04-07T19:33:00","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T01:33:00","slug":"cortez-parks-users-want-softball-trail-improvements","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-parks-users-want-softball-trail-improvements\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez parks users want softball, trail improvements"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Dean
Dean Palmquist explains the results of a survey seeking input on a 10-year plan for the Cortez Parks and Recreation Department.<\/span>Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The parks department hosted two public input sessions Wednesday at the Cortez Recreation Center. People were invited to ask questions about the city\u2019s facilities and to highlight specific projects they want to see as priorities in the master plan.<\/p>\n

People can complete an online survey where they can identify projects they want to see completed. The survey will be up until mid-May. Parks Advisory Board members and parks department staffers will develop recommendations based on the survey, which they will present to the City Council in the master plan. The goal is to create a 10-year plan that will have some projects lined up before the council starts figuring the city\u2019s 2017 budget this August, Palmquist said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s critical that we keep up our facilities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Parks Advisory board likely will discuss the master plan at its May 20 meeting, 7 a.m. at the Rec Center. That board\u2019s meetings take place at that time on the third Friday of the month and are open to the public.<\/p>\n

About 90 people so far have completed the survey online, Palmquist said. Those respondents identified expanding city trails, renovating the City Park stage and repairing the Centennial Park restrooms as top priorities.<\/p>\n

Wednesday, however, people had different thoughts. Some wanted lighting updates and other improvements at the South Softball Complex. Others want to see the city skate park expanded. Many said they wanted to see a park on the south side of town, possibly on the site of the old Montezuma-Cortez High School building on Seventh Street, Palmquist said.<\/p>\n

Some people at Wednesday\u2019s meeting said people aren\u2019t using many of the city\u2019s existing trails, so building more wouldn\u2019t be a good use of city resources.<\/p>\n

Renovating the Centennial Park restrooms is already on the department\u2019s maintenance schedule for this year, he said.<\/p>\n

People want to see a multi-use trail from Cortez to Mancos in the Paths to Mesa Verde project, but that depends on cooperation of many government bodies and won\u2019t happen overnight, Palmquist said.<\/p>\n

Some other projects online survey respondents advocated include starting a community orchard, building an outdoor skating rink, constructing new playgrounds at City Park and Market Street, increasing lighting at Parque de Vida, increasing street pruning, improving restrooms and concessions areas at Rotary Park and building pickleball courts at Centennial Park, according to survey results.<\/p>\n

The parks department gets between $75,000 and $80,000 in conservation trust funds per year. With additional money from the city\u2019s general fund, the department receives $100,000 to $110,000 per year to spend on capital improvement projects.<\/p>\n

Palmquist said Wednesday\u2019s meetings went well and will be useful as the park staff and board develops the master plan.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we had some really good dialogue,\u201d Palmquist said. \u201cIt\u2019s good to hear people who have legitimate issues. We had a broad representation of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The survey can be found on the city\u2019s website, www.cityofcortez.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Palmquist explains the results of a survey seeking input on a 10-year plan for the Cortez Parks and Recreation Department.Sam Green\/The Journal The parks department hosted two public input sessions Wednesday at the Cortez Recreation Center. People were invited to ask questions about the city\u2019s facilities and to highlight specific projects they want to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":105810,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13,976,1982],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-105809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-outdoor-recreation","tag-parks"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=105809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105809"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=105809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}