INC PARC (parks and rec committee) met November 20,2018 at 6:00pm-7:30pm at Brookdale U.Park,2020S. Monroe St.

Present were co-chairs Maggie Price and Cindy Johnstone, Katie and Steve Fisher,Ronnie Crawford,Ean Tafoya,Helene Orr, Greg Sorensen

Our guest speaker was Deborah Turner from Denver Public Works Capital Project Management.

Deborah Turner gave a presentation on Denver CIP sidewalk Gap Program. It is available on our web site.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Deborah explained how the sidewalk gap is prioritized.

1. City owned property.
2. High injury network.
3. Improving access to transit.
4. Access to schools ,PARKS, grocery stores.
5. Areas with low income and high rates of childhood obesity.

Denver Moves has identified over 355 miles of side walk gaps she said. City owned Property is about 45 miles. In 2017-2018 the city did about 3 miles of city owned property. Sidewalk work needs to be done in all city council districts.   At present time there is more money to address these problems.

Our major discussion was centered around Parks and concrete.
INC PARC would like more public meetings to discuss the needs in parks and voiced a concern about too much concrete in our parks. We asked for further discussion about the use of impermeable vs permeable side walks and parking lots . Our concern is run off water, drainage, and climate change. Several of the committee voiced their concern about placing sidewalks by golf courses and playing fields. Deborah mentioned that not all parks need sidewalks. The city has to have equipment to clear and maintain sidewalks so some sidewalks within the park must be wide enough to accommodate vehicles and plows.

During our discussion we learned that Denver has a very long process of bid to completion of sidewalk instillation. The city may want to change this process to speed up work.

Deborah Turner has become the “czar” of sidewalks for the city. She works with the park planning dept, the park staff, the city forester to install the sidewalks.

There was had a short report from Ean Tofaya about the PRAB meeting in November. More parks have been designated and there will be more to come. There is a movement to change the name of Mt. Evans which was announced at PRAB meeting.

There will be no PARC meeting in December 2018.

Notes by Katie Fisher