Should the County Return Grant Funds for Park?

By Stan Matthews
County Communications Program Manager

Many of the Lopezians attending a public meeting at Odlin Park on June 30 suggested that the County Parks and Recreation Department consider returning grants for $400,000 worth of renovations to the park and leave the property as it is.

More than 60 Lopezians turned out to offer feedback on design options for the renovation of Odlin Park. Four years earlier similar meetings, asking input on the park’s master plan, drew a half-dozen or fewer people; however more than 280 Lopezians signed a petition supporting the master plan when it was completed.

For more than 40 years Odlin Park has served a dual role on Lopez Island as a local use park and a tourist destination. Some campers have been bringing their families to Odlin Park for three generations.

The County won a $150,000 the state grant to make capital improvements in the park through a highly competitive process involving cities and counties across the state, after a planning and public involvement process that has lasted several years. The balance of the funding is to come through grants from the Public Facilities Financing Assistance Program.

During the June 30 meeting, several members of the audience, some of whom had walked over to the meeting after a softball game, objected to modifications to the ball field that were shown in the different options presented by landscape architect John Barker.

Also attending the meeting were several people whose interest focused on keeping a thirty foot long WWI/WWII vintage artillery piece in the park and available for children to climb upon. The cannon, which was placed in the park by a now-defunct American Legion Post, will be the subject of a discussion at a County Council meeting on Lopez July 20.

County Parks and Recreation Director Dona Wuthnow explained at the meeting that the priorities for the renovation project included widening the day use picnicking and play area adjacent to the beach, and redesigning the day use parking area and the road to improve pedestrian safety and avoid the near-gridlock which sometimes occurs on busy sunny days. On some of those days Park personnel have to unravel situations where parked cars have blocked access to campsites at one end of the parking area and cars parked at the other end restrict access to the boat ramp.

“The use of Odlin Park has been increasing steadily over the years,” Wuthnow said, “and our park personnel are concerned about access and about the safety of children walking or running through that congested area from the beach to the restroom.”

That view was not warmly received at the meeting. A frequent comment was that there had been few, if any, accidents over the nearly 85 years since the area was designated as a park and those attending the meeting felt that the proposed changes were not needed, or would not be that much of an improvement.

“I was surprised at what I heard and so were the members of the Odlin Park Staff who attended,” said Wuthnow. “The staff’s concern was that people who use the park for activities such as picnics, family reunions, birthday parties and general recreation did not seem to be represented, and generally they are the most numerous and frequent users of the park.” The day use area adjacent to the beach is used steadily by locals and tourists from April through October.

However, swampy conditions on the ball field make it unusable much of the year and because it sits on a designated wetland only minor improvements to the field itself are possible.

The park’s staff reported that the ball field has been used infrequently this year with only a few pickup games and two organized ball games played on the field. Little league games are generally played on a field at a local school.

All proposed renovation designs would modify the field, but keep it available for use.

Wuthnow noted that there has been strong support for building a new group camping area as part of the renovation project; however under the terms of the grant all of the elements included in the grant proposal must be included in the project or the grant may be recalled.

The Parks and Recreation Department will hold another meeting on the renovation design on Lopez Island in early September, at which revised designs will be presented for comment. In the mean time the County is asking for Lopez residents to offer comments online.

County residents who wish to comment or learn more about the proposed renovations can visit the Odlin Park project page of the County website at: https://SanJuanco.com/Odlin