Update on Park

Well, through a long drawn out advocacy process, the Town Council considered three separate motions for Cameron Pond Park, they all were very close, with the most recent motion failing 4-3. Jennifer Robinson, Ken George, and Ed Yerha voted in our favor while Lori Bush, Harold Weinbrecht, Don Frantz, and Jack Smith opposed the motion. This park was programmed for funding in the FY2016 budget for master planning in FY2017 ($100,000), design in FY2018 ($750,000), and construction in FY2020 ($5,300,000). While this is a set back and a significant deviation, we can instead steer our efforts to master planning the park in FY2018, design in FY2019, and still construction in FY2020. The Town of Cary is appropriating money to funding Morris Branch Park and is moving ahead. The council members are also strongly considering Cameron Pond Park for a 2018 Parks Bond, but these funds wouldn't be available until FY2020. In my opinion, our advocacy effort should focus on making this project "shovel ready" for FY2020 by completing the master planning and design ahead of time. This requires the Town to use $850,000 to complete the master planning and design of the park ahead of time (each takes about one year). Otherwise, the park won't be built until FY2022 at the earliest. I will continue to advocate to our council to appropriate funds to the project before the bond and also make sure the park ends up on the bond (it was inexplicably left off of the 2012 bond that passed with a majority of 70%). Another way we can make sure this happens is if he are able to raise the money to "loan" the Town of Cary (or pay for it if there is an interested party) to design and plan the park prior to FY2020. We would be looking for approximately $850,000 to do so. The Town's concern is that they don't want to devote the money to planning and designing the park if the Park bond doesn't pass (this money could be wasted if the various neighboring properties change significantly between the time it is designed and when funds are finally available for construction. If there was an organization or business willing to "take a chance on Cary", fund the planning and design independently, get paid back when a bond finally passes or the Town of Cary is able to find another way. The next public opportunities to provide input about the park will be in October and I will try to keep you all apprised of these events. The Town generally takes in comments from the public about the FY2018 budget at that time as well. Thank you all for your support.