Piñon Valley Park Update/Park Clean-up Day

Over 25 people met at the Piñon Valley Park pavilion on Monday, July 12 to:

• receive an update on funds raised by our community to support work at the park,
• obtain park maintenance status from Kurt Schroeder, Parks, Open Space and Trails manager, and Stacy Rawlins, park supervisor, and
• plan a Park Clean-up Day at the park.

Ed Plute, PVNA treasurer, noted that $8,515 had been deposited as of 6/28/10. This amount includes $320 donated by Piñon Glen Homeowners Association for the return of a portable restroom in the park. It does not include the in-kind donation by Green Valley Ranch towards a 1 ton dumpster, trash pick-up by volunteers and trash bags for the 5 trash cans that have been returned to the park. As Ed noted, funds are still coming in from residents within our community.

Kurt and Stacy were amazed at the amount of activity in the park on a Monday evening. The playground was bustling, neighbors were visiting, people were using the park trail and a baseball game was on at the west end of the park. Kurt Schroeder congratulated PVNA on the amount that has been raised and said that only one other neighborhood in the City had raised $8,000 for their park.

Because of our commitment, they have been trying to support our efforts as much as possible. Kurt noted that the City contractor planned to fertilize the week of July 12. However, this had been delayed due to the very hot weather. They also planned to over-seed within the next couple of weeks. Although the park looks very green, it is mostly weeds and not grass. The Parks department also plans to send letters to our donors and those should be received within the next couple of weeks.

In his State of the City speech last month, Mayor Lionel Rivera announced a recycling plan to replace garbage cans with new trash and recycling receptacles as early as the fall. Kurt noted this was primarily planned for larger parks. We urged him to propose to the donating company that they possibly use Piñon Valley Park as a test site to see how it would work in smaller parks.

Neighborhood residents volunteered to assist with trash collection by taking specific weeks. This will provide a reprieve for the three individuals that have been collecting trash ever since the containers were returned to the park. Volunteers are still needed for additional weeks. Please contact Tom Hutton to see how you can help.

The final activity of the evening was planning a Park Volunteer Clean-up Day for Saturday, July 31 this has been moved to August 14, starting at 8:00 a.m. until about 12:00 p.m. Although we are still finalizing activities, they may include sanding and re-staining of picnic tables and park benches, weed pulling, playground clean-up, clean-out of barbecue grills, adding sand to the volleyball pit, and cutting weeds along the park trail and culvert trail.

More details will be posted within the next few days.

Our thanks to everyone who has donated towards the park fund. We also urge you, your family and any club you might belong to, to participate in the Volunteer Day to support your park. More information will come very soon.