435 Magazine has named Gillham Park one of the top sledding spots in Kansas City! Tag your sledding pics with #hydeparkkc and make the most of these winter storms.
http://www.435mag.com/January-2019/11-of-the-Coolest-Sledding-Hills-in-Kansas-City/
Construction of the sprayground at 41st and Gillham/Kenwood is almost complete! There will be a ribbon cutting event on Thursday, August 9, at 11 a.m. Further details on this event to come.
For more information from KC Parks, click here.
For previous blog posts concerning the sprayground, click here.
To view details about the original proposal, published in 2015, click here.
The City Auditor’s Office released an audit of the Parks and Recreation Department’s environmentally sustainable practices for parkland maintenance. The audit focused on whether the department maximizes the use of environmentally sustainable practices to manage its natural resources.
Auditors concluded that the department has a few sustainable practices to preserve and restore parkland ecology. These practices include the planting of some native or regionally appropriate species, the removal of invasive species, pest management in parkland, and environmental planning for natural areas. Beyond these practices, the department’s park landscape maintenance activities largely focus on park aesthetics in the form of ornamental annual flowers and turf grass, both of which are not environmentally sustainable. Auditors determined that the department does not incorporate sustainable practices into many of the activities required to maintain these landscape features including watering, fertilizer and pesticide use, and mowing activities. In addition, although the department has incorporated some environmentally sustainable practices in its policies related to pesticide application, it does not always follow them.
Auditors also determined that the department does not have measurable goals to guide sustainable management of parkland. Most parkland does not have an environmental resource management plan to guide staff and contractors in the sustainable maintenance unique to a park or park type. Additionally, the department’s operations and maintenance manual does not incorporate sustainable maintenance practices.
The audit includes recommendations to strengthen the department’s sustainable maintenance of parkland natural resources. Management agreed with the recommendations.
View the complete report online at http://kcmo.gov/cityauditor/.
For more information, please contact Douglas Jones, City Auditor, at cityauditor@kcmo.org or (816) 513-3300.
Construction began yesterday on our new sprayground. Neighborhood meetings were held in November 2015 to get input from the four GRIP (Gillham Road Improvement Project) neighborhoods. An online survey was made available to the neighborhoods at the same time. Based on neighborhood input, the design consultant presented a conceptual design of the proposed sprayground at the January 2016 Hyde Park Neighborhood Association meeting.
The project received $100,000 PIAC funding in May 2016 for design work. The design consultant prepared construction documents for the sprayground so it was ready to be built once adequate funding was made available. In May 2017 the project received an additional $290,000 PIAC funding. The final amount to begin construction, nearly $400,000, was donated by a local Kansas City family foundation who wishes to remain anonymous.
The below items for the Gillham Road Improvement Plan (GRIP) have already been completed. In the poll, which can be found by clicking here, please rank which of the remaining items are of the highest priority to you and your neighbors.
Complete:
To read the full GRIP, please visit this link: https://hydeparkkc.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Develop-Presentation.pdf
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