A comprehensive master plan outlining the next 18 months and beyond for the Starkville parks system was approved by aldermen at Tuesday evening's board meeting.
The document offers up departmental changes to the Starkville Parks and Recreation Department, while providing detailed recommendations for improving the entire parks system.
The unanimous vote will pave the way for the department to reorganize, add new positions and update the department's maintenance operations, establish a citizen-led parks advisory board and update all programming contracts within the next 18 months.
"I believe this is not the end-step, but the big first-step in truly trying to set a road map for how we improve the parks and recreation component for the citizens of Starkville," Ward 4 Alderman Jason Walker said. "It will be a historic move, it's never been done in Starkville before. It's something that puts us down the path of knowing what we have and how we change that in the future."
Carver motion
Ward 1 Alderman Ben Carver spoke at length about the need to improve SPRD's maintenance operations and offered a motion to remove current director Herman Peters from his position. The move failed without a second, and Wiseman and various aldermen came to Peters' defense following Carver's comments.
"I think we are having the biggest maintenance issues we've ever had," Carver said before offering the motion. "I don't think the leadership is down there that we need."
Wiseman defended Peters and said he was satisfied with his leadership following the department's city-led takeover initiated last year to solve extensive utility bill payments. In the last year, the parks system had focused on improving maintenance to the entire system, while bringing in more tournaments in the city, Wiseman said.
The plan is available with the July 26 agenda on cityofstarkville.org.
For more on the story, see the July 27 edition.