Friends of Medlock Park
Notes from January Meeting
Saturday, January 9, 2016 - 9:00a
Attendees:
Chris Foster (DHYS President), Tex
Blair (DHYS Operations), Casey Boudreau (MANA), Kaye Smith (Medlock Community
Garden), Lisa Crowder, Jenna Zargon, Diana Flowers
1. DHYS - DHYS is the "Friends of Medlock Park" group of record with
DeKalb county's Department of Parks and Recreation. Currently, DeKalb County Parks & Rec
maintains very little of the park (primarily the grass outside the park and the
pool) while DHYS (which is a volunteer-run organization) maintains the ball
fields and related structures (batting cages, storage buildings, clubhouse),
and most of the grass inside the park.
a. DHYS role is to manage Medlock Park
baseball/sports program
b. Friends of Medlock Park should focus on all
other common spaces in the park (except for pool)
2. Recent park land survey
a. DHYS commissioned the survey to mark park
boundaries & update maps to guide plans for future improvements
3. DHYS is starting capital campaign to raise
money for:
a. Re-paving and re-striping existing parking
areas to allow for maximum capacity usage within these existing parking
areas (N=75-80). Because the park is in
a floodplain, there are many requirements regarding surfacing. Parking is a perennial issue for DHYS and the
neighborhood.
i. Discussed ideas
for paving options
ii. Not currently
planning to address issues of water run off (to improve drainage)
b. Reinforcing pathways to fields 2 & 3 to
allow for greater accessibility (many grandparents, etc. come to see games
and have difficulty accessing these fields)
i. Discussed
substrate options
ii. Also looking
to improve drainage on old stream bed near playground
c. Improve the playground - the playground
is used by both DHYS and the neighborhood and is an obvious focus for
improvement
d. Lisa asked if
"Friends" could have separate fundraising campaign from
"DHYS" with separate account to raise $ for non-baseball
improvements, such as the playground
i. Chris Foster
will investigate
4. Lisa Crowder
reviewed results from her online survey
(https://showing247.wufoo.com/forms/medlock-park-survey/). The purpose of the survey is to determine who
is using the park, how they are using it, whether they are satisfied with the
park as it is and if not how they would like to change it, and whether they are
willing to help in the process of improving the park.
a. 140+ responses so far
i. Results available online at: https://showing247.wufoo.com/reports/medlock-park-survey-report/
(a) 94 female
respondents - 48 male respondents
(b) Approximately
half of respondents are DHYS participants
(c) Most respondents
aged 30-49
(d) Many respondents
willing to volunteer (largest number willing to volunteer for creek clean-up
but significant number also willing to volunteer for park maintenance,
playground committee, building committee and more
(e) 3/4s of
respondents willing to make donation to park improvements
(f) Majority of
park respondents live in Medlock or in 30033
(g) Approximately
1/3 of respondents use the park more than once a week
(h) Single biggest
amenity used by respondents is The PATH (85%); 59% playground; 52% greenspace;
42% baseball fields; 40% creek
(i) Of respondents
who report they use the creek, nearly 80% say they would participate in a creek
clean-up
(j) Many
respondents left comments of ideas for improving the park
b. Friends of Medlock
Park Facebook group has been created as a way to better communicate with
the community, and currently has 40 members (it is a "Closed" group that
people may join at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/friendsofmedlockpark/)
5. Casey
reviewed status of Scott lots masterplan - (The Scott lots are sites of former homes along Scott Circle that
were bought out by the county using FEMA money because of persistent
flooding. The lots were adjacent to
Medlock Park and are now under the control of DeKalb Parks & Recreation.)
a. Met with County
Commissioner Jeff Rader on 11/23 – he is supportive of neighborhood effort to
improve Scott lots (further details from this meeting previously shared)
b. Master plan was
submitted to and accepted by Parks Dept
c. Next steps
i. apply for
grants & otherwise raise money
ii. recruit help
to implement, in phases
6. Tex asked about
plan for South Peachtree Creek PATH to connect to Druid Hills Middle School –
no one else was aware
7. Should
DHYS and Friends group be separate entities?
a. Chris not sure
DHYS wants to do this, thinks better to work together
b. Some think could
improve relations between neighborhood & DHYS
c. Group agreed
best to continue to have stand-alone Friends meetings (like this meeting)
rather than having the Friends meeting be part of a DHYS board meeting (as has
been the case in recent history)
i. Need to harness
the energy of both communities
ii. DHYS happy to
help with fundraising (DHYS is 501(c)(3) tax exempt organization) & willing
to match funds for non-baseball improvements
iii. Try to get
Parks & Rec official (Paige Singer ?) to attend future FOMP meeting for
better sense of what county can/will do for park
8. What
are the priorities as far as non-baseball activities?
a. Playground
i. Fix surface
ii. Add shade
iii. Upgrade
structures
(a) Action Points
• Identify
landscape architect/designer/playground designer to help figure out what can do
• Set up working
group to provide input (Lisa will coordinate)
• Identify and
review grant opportunities
b. Scott lots
i. Organize
cleanup of current space (debris; undesirable plantings; etc.) – tentatively in
Mar 2016 (prior to significant Spring growing season)
ii. Action
point: Casey to contact Dave Butler for assistance
iii. Identify and
review grant opportunities
c. Creek
i. Based on survey
responses, many people use the creek and would like to see it cleaned up and
better maintained
ii. Lots of mud
& sand get washed out during rain, hard to clean up (may be coming from
Horse Park) - Tex to contact Paige at Parks & Rec
iii. Ideas to
pursue further
(a) Better maintain
creekside trail
• Maybe enhance
surfacing along the creek to make it less treacherous? Cannot interfere with
flood drainage.
• Action point: Lisa to contact
South Fork Conservancy & Keep DeKalb Beautiful for help
• Action point: Identify landscape architect with appropriate
expertise who can assist with project
• Action point: Organize cleanup
(potentially piggyback with Scott lots clean-up in March 2016)
(b) More plantings
(trees help soak up water)
9. Next
meeting: Sat 2/13 at 9a in park clubhouse meeting room
Consensus was that we need greater participation from the community. DHYS is a volunteer
organization that has a lot on its plate with running the sports program and
keeping the baseball parts of the park in shape. If neighbors want park improvements they need
to get involved both in the organizational efforts and by contributing time,
skills and money. Parks & Rec has no
money for improvements and relies on DHYS for almost all maintenance to the
park. DHYS will try to match neighborhood
donations. We need to find outside
funding sources, and we need more people to participate in planning.
Additional issues discussed:
1. Lights are
sometimes not turned off when fields are vacated, Tex to remind users to not
leave lights on all night as are on 12 hour timer & costs $65/hour to run
2. MANA to send
info out by email to increase reach of information
