Standing-Room-Only Crowd Shows Up for Parks Discussion in La Grange

A standing room-only crowd packed the La Grange City Council chamber Thursday evening, June 26. They were there for an open house over the City’s Parks, Recreation, Open Spaces, and Trails Master Plan.

City Council hired the consulting firm Freese and Nichols back earlier this year to assist staff with building the plan, which will guide the Council as they consider future improvements to the parks system. Representatives from the company were on hand to gather input about what kinds of park amenities citizens want.

“These are your parks,” said Caitlin Admire, an associate with Freese and Nichols, at the start of the meeting. “This is your plan. We’re here to facilitate the process and add our expert guidance. We really want this plan to be based on what we hear from you guys. We’re not coming in with any preconceived notions. This is your plan and we are here to facilitate the process and put everything into a document for you to use going forward. What is a parks plan? It is a 10 year plan, and we recommend five year updates. This isn’t your only chance to talk about things. We’ll have more meetings to talk about this.”

Admire said the first step was to conduct a parks inventory, which she said was mostly complete. Freese and Nichols visited all the parks and documented all the amenities, down to the number of park benches. Admire said the team will compare La Grange’s parks amenities to national standards. They’ll also conduct a resource-based assessment to see what kind of amenities might complement existing resources, such as the Colorado River.

The City has been conducting a parks survey for several weeks. They’ve received 371 responses.

“Some of the most wanted things are aquatics,” she said.

The survey responses also expressed interest in riverfront features, birding, and nature and dog parks.

Admire said the Freese and Nichols team will tailor the plan to attract grant funding, especially from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. They’ll also provide the City with cost estimates for facility improvements they recommend.

She described La Grange’s 179 acres of park space as “really good for a city of this population.”

“Five of your eight parks have restrooms, which is also pretty good,” she said. “Not a lot of parks have restroom facilities.”

On the other hand, she said La Grange lacks some park facilities that are more common in other towns, such as small neighborhood parks, a skate park, dog park or pool.

“I know a lot of people in the community are very interested in the aquatics conversation,” Admire said. “That’s the big conversation in La Grange right now.”

Lots of folks were there in support of a new aquatics center, including dozens of parents and children from the Fayette Area Swim Team.

The folks from Freese and Nicholas had set up several informational stations around the Council Chamber. They wanted to visit with attendees one-on-one at the booths after Admire’s introduction. Instead, the open house morphed into an impromptu town hall meeting.

One of the attendees, Michael Schlabach, started by questioning the lack of emphasis on fishing in the materials Freese and Nichols had on display.

“Something you never mentioned was fishing,” he said. “You’re talking about a river where kids go fishing and play in, and that word never came out of your mouth. But dog parks, tennis complex, golf course, skate park did. This is a rural area. You say you’re doing this on a national level with communities our size. We’re different from other communities.

“I don’t understand why we’re hiring people from out of town to tell us how to build our town,” he added. “I don’t understand that.”

The City hired Freese and Nichols back in February at a cost of $90,000.

“Why aren’t we doing this with a group of people from La Grange?” Schlabach asked. “Why are we hiring people from out of town?”

City Manager Jack Thompson responded: “They’re helping us put this together. They’re gathering data and helping us absorb the plan. The plan is based on stuff like tonight. This is y’all’s chance to go and say you want fishing. If you want fishing, this is your chance to say you want fishing. This is the chance for everyone to say what they want. As we’ve stated all night, this is the resident’s plan. This is y’all’s plan. They’re gathering data and information and they’ll put it out in a report for us, help us organize it, and give us a game plan based on what y’all want.”

Another attendee, Gene Carson, asked about financial implications for a parks expansion in the City. He asked whether the City can afford new parks facilities, especially after the City’s recent real estate purchases including the former Prause Meat Market and Fayette Electric Cooperative locations, along with the property on the northwest corner of the Square.

“You’re spending all this money without knowing whether you’re going to be able to fund it,“ Carson said.

“(Having a plan like this) puts you on a higher level for getting Texas Parks and Wildlife grants,” Admire said.

Lee Fritsch, a big supporter of local youth livestock programs, raised a concern about possible changes to the Fayette County Fairgrounds, which is the largest Cityowned park facility.

“We have our Junior Livestock Sale up there and the Commercial Heifer Show at the Fair, and last year that contributed about $1.5 million to Fayette County kids,” Fritsch said. “If you come in there and get rid of it to make it into a park, I don’t think you’re going to generate $1.5 million for the kids.”

“We’re really getting out there, folks,” Thompson said. “We’re not talking about doing anything to any parks. We’re simply collecting ideas. There are no plans for anything right now.”

Another resident, local architect Brad Cutright, urged the consultants to understand how La Grange is different than other towns.

“You really have to think totally differently when you walk in these city limits,” Cutright said. “We are not like Seguin. We are not like Mc-Kinney. We’re not like Katy. In everything you do, I ask that you proceed very, very carefully. Unfortunately we had a hospital that got bigger than it should have been, and now it’s closed. We don’t want something that’s so big and costly that it costs so much to maintain. I ask you to be very, very reasonable in what you do, and proceed cautiously. Everyone here has great ideas. They were born here, they live here and their kids might come back here. So I ask you to put on your hat a little differently when you get here and think small.”

Some of the aquatic center supporters asked questions related to where such a facility might be built and how much the City might be able to budget toward it.

“We don’t know that,” Admire said. “It’s way too early in the process for that.

KJ Toombs, the leader of the group raising money for a future aquatics center, introduced herself to the consultants.

“That’s the ideal situation for a facility like that – a partnership,” Admire said.

“Our goal is not to build an aquatic center that this community can’t support,” said Sequoya Janacek, one of the many swim team parents in attendance. “Our goal is to give our kids a place to swim competitively year round, a place for our high school team to practice, and a place to do physical therapy. If you want to swim laps, cool. Go swim laps. It’s not just a place designed for competitive swimming. I don’t need a $100 million aquatic center.”

From there, the open house got back on track. Folks visited the different stations and gave input to the Freese and Nichols consultants. To view the materials from the open house, visit https://www. cityoflg.com/newsdetail_T3_ R646.php.