Budget drops plan to renovate all city parks

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

Budget planning for the upcoming 2015 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, are causing the rapid dismantling of plans put in place by former city manager Bob Vitas.

The latest took place at the July 21 budget workshop, where Commissioner Mark Rossi was complaining about a proposal to spend $65,000 to create a Duval Street master plan. That request was one of four submitted by the planning department for updated or new master and design plans totaling $291,000.

Rather than eliminate the Duval Street planning proposal, City Planner Don Craig and Community Services Director Greg Veliz engaged in some budget horse trading, offering to sacrifice a pet project of Vitas’ to create an open space and recreation master plan. Vitas’ idea was to look at all the city’s 30 parks and ball fields, determine the needs of each public space and create a coordinated, longer-term park development and maintenance plan, allowing commissioners to budget accordingly. The cost of the master plan was estimated at $250,000 and requests for consultant qualifications went out in May, attracting three bidders.

But both Craig and Veliz said the idea was flawed and recommended that the project be scrapped immediately. Veliz said the shelf life for a master plan is usually about five years. It would be difficult to implement such a potentially wide-ranging plan in that time frame, he said.

“They [consultant] are going to specify what the locations need, what facilities… there are going to be needs assessment for every piece of property we have. After you get that, we’re going to have to go back individually to design each one of those parks to incorporate what the master plan tells us. Then we’re going to have to go forward with the completion of that project within five years or everything else in that plan is dead,” Veliz said.

City planners have already decided that a top priority is a redesign of Bayview Park, which is moving ahead with approval of a Vietnam veterans memorial and the resurfacing of the tennis and basketball courts. As for the rest of the city’s public recreational spaces, employees, rather than consultants, could do the job, Commissioner Billy Wardlow said.

“I think we have the employees do it. A lot of our studies and everything else could be done in-house,” he said.

“This makes sense,” Craig said, responding to Wardlow’s suggestion. “Greg [Veliz] and I both know, based on our experience, where the designs need to be done, where the deficiencies are in terms of our existing park system.”

Key West spokesperson Alyson Crean said that although three companies had responded to the request for qualifications for an open space and recreation master plan, the city was under no obligation to go forward with the project. In addition to Bayview Park, the city has committed to building a new waterfront park near the Truman Annex, she said, and Vitas’ plan didn’t adequately look at how to implement or pay for park renovations beyond that.

Asked why the city had been moving forward with a project that at least two senior managers disagreed with, Crean attributed it to the change in leadership at the top. Former City Attorney Jim Scholl was hired July 1 as Interim City Manager, taking over for Vitas who agreed to leave one year before his contract expired after a dispute between him and City Attorney Shawn Smith spilled over into an emotional public airing at a City Commission meeting in June.

“We had a change in city management. There are [different] philosophical styles. Our former city manager [Vitas] manages one way… to be able to have a blueprint in front of him. Jim Scholl is first and foremost a good steward of public money. Looking at this closely in that light, it looks like something that could be spent in a better way,” Crean said, referring to the proposed $250,000 cost of the open space and recreation plan.

Commissioner Clayton Lopez also pointed out that the recent redesign of Nelson English Park was done with a focus group of local residents who contributed their time.

“It [the park] was plagued with other issues but the planning and design was not part of it,” he said.

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