(Seguin) — What do you want to see for the future of the Seguin Parks and Recreation system?
Seguin residents this Thursday are invited to share their thoughts and ideas to help plan for the future during an interactive Parks Master Plan Public Engagement Session at the Seguin Coliseum.
City officials say the results will create a Parks Master Plan. The plan will guide city staff, advisory boards, and elected officials in their efforts to enhance the city’s parks and recreation services and facilities well into the future.
Parks Director Jack Jones says the public engagement session is compiling the needs and wants of the Seguin community.
“The idea is to get a plan, a road map, for us in developing future parks, add amenities, park maintenance and even new facilities in our park’s system. So, this plan gives us that guide, that road map, that is based on community input and support and approved by our parks and recreation advisory board, planning and zoning commission and city council and that has to be like our Bible in a sense that that’s what we are going to go by for the next five to 10 years in developing and maintaining our parks system,” said Jones.
Earlier this year, Jones says the city hired Stantec Consulting Services, Inc. to assist with developing a 5 to 10 year plan. He says it’s been 15 years since the city has had a real “hard core” plan for the future.
Jones says the city needed an outside source to not only come in and collect the data but also help the city implement its findings. He says with Stantec, the city is also getting the opportunity to work with one of its company representatives who is already familiar with Seguin. He says leading the effort for the company locally is Seguin native Mark Maldonado.
“It was a very competitive process. There were probably over 12 firms that put in to do this plan for us. We had a staff committee that narrowed it down to the top three and with Stantec being one of the top three and we interviewed the top three. Stantec just came to the top with their enthusiasm. It was personal to them. Mark Maldonado, growing up here, that’s where the personal part came from but you could just tell that Stantec was the right company to make sure that we had a plan that was not only good — a lot of people can do a good park plan — but what’s important to us and it is why they were selected was a plan that is going to be implementable. That we could accomplish it over the course of the next 10 years,” said Jones.
The city of Seguin will host a public meeting at 6 p.m. on Thursday in the Coliseum. The city wants to hear from citizens about what they want from the city’s park system in the future. The input will be used to develop a parks master plan for Seguin.
This Thursday’s public engagement session is the next step for Stantec who Jones says has already begun seeking thoughts and comments from the public by offering a six question community survey.
“Well Stantec really got a head start on us. They came out for Freedom Fiesta and they came out for the July 3rd Fireworks Show, the July 4th Parade. We got some initial impact from the public, just the basic six questions. They talked to a bunch of people on the ground. Now, the next step is to get people to show up to a meeting. Let’s have some work stations. Let’s go around and figure out exactly what folks are looking for. Let’s dive deeper into this,” said Jones.
Maldonado says because this is a comprehensive plan that rolls out needs and wishes for the future, he is encouraging as many residents as possible to come out and have their voices heard.
“The plan is intended to help the city identify the recommendations and priorities for the parks and recreation system. Within that, we try to develop a framework n line with the community’s needs. So, it’s really important that we have a community engagement portion and good participation from the citizens because that’s the voices that we hear. We don’t try to tell you how to develop the city. We want to hear that from the citizens. What’s needed? Nobody knows Seguin better than the Seguin residents and a lot of times, that is underplayed in the community engagement events. We need people’s voices to be heard. We need people to come and tell us their thoughts, their visions and ideas so that we can say ‘okay, here’s the priorities. This is what the community is saying. Now, here’s how we can kind of put all these different puzzle pieces together in a tangible and phase form that meets the budget and constraints and opportunities’ and all those different things that we have,” said Maldonado.
Maldonado says the public will also get to help prioritize projects for the city — a process that takes all factors such as funding into consideration.
“First, we are going to talk about and do a big overview on the process — like the planning process and master plan update — what we are doing. After that, we are going to break off into small sessions. There will probably be about nine little sessions throughout or stations if you will where residents are going to be able to give their feedback on different perspectives. One question that we might ask is how do you see the Seguin Parks system in 20 years and what does that look like to you? Another station might say, what’s the number one recreation desire that you have and that you would like to see in Seguin either improved or created? That would be perfect opportunity for you to say, ‘we don’t have a natatorium and we really feel we should have a natatorium or we need additional trails to connect venue A to venue B but also, we try to be realistic of what we have at hand. So, we will have another station where we give you the opportunity to kind of play the financial game a little bit to say ‘here are some chips, how would you spend the money on your priorities?’ Drop it into a bucket of the priorities and the money allocated of how you would spend the money. So, we are kind of switching the cards there to put it on the residents to guide us if you will on prioritizing these events,” said Maldonado.
Maldonado says public input should include all things “park.”
“And we are looking at a lot of different aspects of this thing. It’s not just a park. We are looking at connectivity. We are looking at a quality of life improvements. We are looking at health improvements. We are looking at health benefits. We are looking at programming and recreational events. So, we are looking at this park’s system as exactly that — a system of multiple facets that come together to improve the quality of life for Seguin residents,” said Maldonado.
The public session will get underway at 6 p.m. Thursday at the Coliseum. Those participating that day will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win up to $300 in door prizes. Individuals must be present to win.
Following the park’s engagement session, the city will launch another community survey. This time, the survey will include 25 questions and is expected to dive deeper into specific visions for the park’s system. Stantec and the city both hope to propose a master parks plan by January 2020 so that budgeting and other funding options can be outlined for implementation of some of the projects.
A link to that survey will be made available beginning on Aug. 29 on the homepage of the city’s website, www.seguintexas.gov. The online survey will continue through Sept. 30.