Happy birthday … to our parks!

Stansbury Park, one of Louisville's 18 Olmsted Parks, turns 110 this year.

From Metro Parks Community Relations staff
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Several of our 124 parks are celebrating significant anniversaries this year, and we’re looking for help in throwing them a birthday party! Any artifacts,  including pictures, stories, and newspaper articles that the public has and would be willing to share with us would be appreciated.

E-mail us if you have any of these items and wish to share them with us. And if you just want to share a favorite memory of one of the parks, that would be great too!

Here are the anniversaries this year:

• Berrytown Park – 40 years
• Camp Taylor Park – 70 years
• Flaget Field Park – 25 years
• Long Run – 50 years
• Old Walnut/Beecher Park – 70 years
• Magnolia Park – 30 years
• Stansbury Park – 110 years
• E. Leland Taylor Park – 60 years
• Wyandotte Park – 75 years

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Receive diabetes support at Douglass Community Center classes

By BJ Levis
Recreation Administrator
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The Douglass Community Center is currently hosting diabetes support groups.

Metro Parks and Recreation and the Public Health and Wellness Department are proud to offer support groups for persons with diabetes that live in the Highlands and surrounding areas! If you’ve recently been diagnosed with diabetes or are a veteran living with it, we have a support group and program for you. We also have meetings for youths and adults living with the disease. Meetings will offer healthy snacks, ideas for better management of your diabetes, exercise and activity ideas and networking and support.

The Adult Diabetes Support Group meets the 2nd Thursday of each Month from 5 – 6:30 p.m. at the Douglass Community Center, 2305 Douglass Blvd. The next meeting will be April 8th. The youth group for ages 16 and younger will meet the 3rd Saturday of each month from 1:30 – 3 p.m. at Douglass.

Support and information will be offered for youth with diabetes and their families. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to not only learn all you can about diabetes management, but get a chance to meet others, socialize and build a great support. For more information, call 456-8120 or 456-8148.

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Inaugural Riverside Garden Club meeting taking place March 13

Join other outdoor and garden enthusiasts for the first Riverside Garden Club meeting March 13!

By Patti Linn, Riverside, the Farnsley-Moremen Landing Site Manager
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We invite all garden and outdoor enthusiasts to get involved in the brand new Riverside Garden Club. Riverside, the Farnsley-Moremen Landing, a 300-acre historic Metro Parks property–right on the banks of the beautiful Ohio River–will be the regular meeting site for club. Membership in the Riverside Garden Club is open and no dues are required. The group will focus on gardening education for its members and visitors to Riverside. It will also provide opportunities for people to get involved in fun, worthwhile projects that will improve the landscape and general condition of green space at the site—all in support of Riverside’s overall mission.

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Cherokee Park’s teepee

We’re good listeners, and we hear you!

While some sound reasoning went into the plan to someday replace the well-known “teepee” structure in Cherokee Park, not everyone is convinced. One of the purposes of master planning is to attempt to reach consensus on the future needs for a park. Since there doesn’t appear to be consensus on this issue, our planning team will host an additional public meeting to discuss it before plans are finalized. Details coming soon.

Meanwhile, here’s some information about the planning effort and the teepee:

• The recommendation to remove the teepee resulted from a master plan being developed by Metro Parks and the Olmsted Parks Conservancy, through a public process. That plan is currently in “draft final” status after four public meetings.
• The possibility of removing the structure was discussed in October 2009, in an article on the front page of the Courier-Journal’s Metro section. The planning effort was promoted via local media, Metro Council representatives, a listserv, the Metro Parks Web site and via Facebook.
• There are no immediate plans to remove the teepee, nor is funding being sought for such an effort.
• If funding is someday in place for this, approval to remove and replace the structure would trigger another public review and opportunity for public comment at that time.
• No new parking is proposed at the current location of the teepee. In fact, there would be no net increase in parking space in this area of the park.
• Master plan recommendations can evolve over time, based on changing community priorities, new information, cost limitations, etc. To that end, additional feedback is always welcome at parks@louisvilleky.gov and info@olmstedparks.org.
• The teepee structure is not in great shape. An estimate prepared by the Olmsted Parks Conservancy found that repairing the roof alone would cost at least $150,000 – about the cost of building a new shelter. Over the long-term, replacing the shelter would be more cost-effective.
• The Olmsted Parks philosophy of “restore, enhance and preserve” has gradually implemented removal of elements that are inconsistent with the Olmsted design intent and replaced them with facilities and structures that are consistent with that design intent.

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