KILLEEN, Texas — The City of Killeen needs your help to make community access to local parks and recreation facilities better for the community.
Jennifer Mayberry lives in downtown Killeen, but she has to go the distance to play on the swing sets with her son.
"Sometimes it is kind of hard to travel across town to take your kid to the park," Mayberry said.
Mayberry’s issue is one of the many reasons why the City of Killeen wants community input for a new Parks Master Plan. A parks master plan is the city's "how to" guide on providing access to parks and recreational activities to people who live in Killeen.
“We are matching up this plan to kind of line up with the five complete components of a complete park,” Executive Director of Recreation Services Joe Brown said. “And that’s is the park resilient? Is the park equitable? Do we have prosperous parks? Is the park connected? And lastly, do we have healthy parks?”
A virtual planning kick-off meeting will take place on Monday from 6 pm. to 7:30 p.m. The meeting will include a presentation about the master planning process.
Another input opportunity is through online surveys. The city also identified 10 parks they are going to survey about their conditions. The parks are include Hunt Neighborhood Park, AA Lane Neighborhood Park, Camacho Neighborhood Park, Fowler Community Park, Maxdell Neighborhood Park, Phyliss Neighborhood Park, Fox Creek Neighborhood Park, Iduma Neighborhood Park, Lions Neighborhood Park and Stewart Neighborhood Park.
"So, we really want to capture the people around those parks, and people who use those neighborhood parks," Brown said. “What does that look like for you? Feel like for you? Capturing all that data is important.”
Mayberry said she hopes the city virtual workshop is a success and already has an input of her own.
"I think the city of Killeen should focus on the downtown area,” Mayberry said. "There are a lot of kids in that area. I think the parks can be cleaned up and become more safer."
Visit the Killeen Parks website to take the surveys for the kick-off meeting Zoom link and for more information.
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