Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Linn County Parks and Recreation Department has been busy taking advantage of dry weather the past couple of weeks to start working on projects across the county, including pouring the new boat ramp at Calkins Park and the reconstruction of the footbridge at Lewis Creek Park.
Others include the rehabilitation of cabins at Clear Lake and the construction of the playground at River Bend Campground.
At Lewis Creek, “in the spring, we wanted to (replace the railings) on that bridge, and we found that we had some rot in the bridge,” Director Brian Carroll said. The county engineer looked at the bridge and said it needed replacement.
The Parks Department closed the Lewis Creek footbridge for the summer because it didn’t have the money it needed to replace it at that point, he said. It would have cost more anyway while Foster Lake was full.
The bridge was built when the park was established in the 1970s, he said. Since then, it has had new decking and railings installed. This time around, the county is replacing everything except the abutments and supports, which are still in good shape.
“We are recycling some of the old bridge parts, some of the metal brackets. There’s nothing wrong with those,” Carroll said.
The reconstruction will cost about $25,000, he said. That mainly pays for the new beams and the cost of the crane used to set them. The department already has the decking for the bridge.
The Parks Department will probably pull people off for other projects, he said, but replacement of the decking and railing will be completed as county crews have time.
“It’ll definitely be ready when the public comes back,” Carroll said.
At Clear Lake, “we’re doing some interior work on some of the cabins,” he said. The county found some rot in the supports and floors of some of the cabins, and crews are busy replacing them. This required the removal of some of the paneling on the walls, and that is being replaced with sheetrock.
At River Bend, a county crew was busy building the park’s playground last week; and this week, crews are pouring the cement for the new boat ramp at Calkins Park, at the intersection of Quartzville Road and Highway 20.
Carroll is busy talking to regulatory agencies and researching what to do with the county’s park property at Highway 34 and Interstate Five, he said. “There’s still a lot of homework to do before we go any further.
The county also has talked with the state about taking over Cascadia State Park, which is closed because the state doesn’t have the manpower available locally to keep it open over the winter.
The state and county have had no in-depth conversations, Carroll said, but the door is open. The county is not dismissing the option, but it is just a discussion at this point.
Visitors to county parks were up last summer, he said.
“We had a great year in terms of attendance,” he said. “The revenues we received were up.”
The county had no fee increases, so revenue increases came solely from increase in visitation, he said.
“We believe we have people coming earlier in the week,” he said, meaning that Linn County is becoming more of a destination than a weekend trip.
Clear Lake, in its first year as a county park, did as well as officials had hoped, he said. “The first season, I would say, was very successful and certainly well-received by the public.”
The county has taken in about $800,000 in revenue in calendar 2007, he said. That’s about $295,000 more than last year. About $280,000 of it was in Clear Lake revenue, leaving about $15,000 more in revenues from the rest of the parks system.
The county paid $100,000 to take over Clear Lake, Carroll said, but the county has had a number of expenses along with that.
The last time the Parks Department ran numbers for the county commissioners was in early October, he said. At that point, Clear Lake had about $277,000 in revenues with expenses of about $165,000 for operations.
“When you look at it right now, it has turned out to be very positive for us,” Carroll said.
Overall, the Parks Department has a budget of about $1.3 million, including Clear Lake, he said. The county’s general fund provides about $300,000 of the department’s operating budget.
The Parks Department moved around its park management following the end of the camping season.
Coming from the state parks department, Mark Smith has been named ranger at Clear Lake.
Tristan Davis is the new ranger at Roaring River. He replaced Kirk Mikkelson who replaced Rod Keenon on the maintenance and construction crew. Scott Paskar has become ranger at River Bend.