This blog represents my opinions and my opinions alone, and certainly doesn't represent the collective thoughts of any of the Boards or organizations that I serve on. Unfortunately I make all sorts of miistakes, I'm a picky eater, I can't sing and I just recently found out I have been spelling certain words in my vocabulary wrong my entire life. That being said, I still continue to muddle ever onward. Welcome.





Wednesday, March 17, 2010

And Now For Something Completely Different...

Monona's Park and Recreation Board has been doing double duty lately with extra meetings scheduled to hash out an updated Park and Open Spaces Plan for the city's park system. This is great fun, particularly in light of the fact that we're a pretty mellow bunch and no one throws chairs or heckles at our meetings. Jake Anderson has created a draft (let me repeat: DRAFT!!!) master plan for Winnequah Park that includes new tennis courts, a splash park, a nature preserve, beautiful trails and a possible concession stand/canoe or kayak rental site at the park's end on Winnequah Road. Did I mention it was only in the draft stage? Still very exciting nonetheless. We also discussed focusing on drainage and parking issues at Ahuska Park and really putting some effort in at Schulter Beach Park. I personally would love to see Schulter Beach Park get the attention that it deserves and have the city work toward making it another premiere park in Monona. The bathroom building is slated for improvement in 2014, which it is undeniably in sore need of. I think it would be fabulous to have paddle boat rentals available for families and to turn the beach back into a spot where people actually want to swim. Our park system is such an amazing asset to the city of Monona, we are truly lucky to have these wonderful resources!

6 comments:

  1. "Schulter Beach Park get the attention that it deserves and have the city work toward making it another premiere park in Monona."


    Hoy Hoy-I strongly agree with you. I have always thought it would be a great place for a small art fair.

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  2. I live near that beach and go over there a lot so I see the water quality problems. Maybe if city personnel cleaned it daily it could work, but the algae blooms are very severe for a good part of the summer. I am not sure it is practical to think people will want to swim there. But a nicer bathroom building would be great and the shelter is too small to be of much use. I do think people would make good use of a larger shelter house.

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  3. New tennis courts? Tell me more-is there an online version of the draft?
    I do hope the courts are moved away from the skate park. Playing tennis while the skater's cig smoke wafts over the court kinda defeats the purpose of getting outdoors to exercise.
    Deb Whitehorse

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  4. Not yet Deb- but soon. Again, this is only the first draft and is really a pie-in-the-sky idea of what he would like to do (all necessary approvals and budgets aside). Jake's draft has the tennis courts moved over to the far side(south) of the parking lot at the Dream Park with an additional court added. The current tennis court area would be the site of a possible pool expansion/splash pad. The skate park would remain where it is.

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  5. I get giddy with the sound of the splash park. We drive all the way to Middleton to use their awesome park. My kids that are in grade school love going. It is not just for toddlers.

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  6. This sounds awesome! Let us mere mortals know what we can do to make some of this a reality.

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