Lake Stevens parks report: North Cove improvements, boat-launch revenue and volunteer hours highlighted

Parks staff presented a 2024 year-end report at the Jan. 21 City Council workshop, describing completed projects, usage statistics and preliminary operational metrics.

Parks Director (Garceau) told council staff removed an older non-motorized dock at North Cove and installed phase 1 of a replacement dock, completed the construction of Westlake Park and Bayview Trail phase 0, and implemented adaptive management at North Cove to reduce standing water. The department also reported a substantial reduction in irrigation at multiple park sites compared with prior years; North Cove water use was down roughly 18.6 percent relative to 2023 in the figures cited.

The report recorded $62,000 in boat-launch revenue generated in 2024 from 8,385 daily boat parking passes and 179 annual boat-launch passes. Parks reported 1,420 volunteer hours across 11 official events and 1,549 hours provided through DOC (Department of Corrections) labor. Rental activity included 337 shelter rentals and 173 individual venue rentals (city use excluded). Parks also standardized grounds operations, developed a mission and vision, created first activity guide and instituted an occasional-use volunteer waiver to ease event volunteer sign-ins.

Council members asked follow-up questions about the mill rental program, vandalism costs and year-over-year trends; the parks director said staff will provide a detailed income-and-expense breakdown for the mill and attempt to provide comparative year-over-year data and a best estimate of vandalism-related direct costs using the department’s records and, in 2025, data from ViewWorks once the department fully transitions to that asset-management system.

What’s next: Parks staff said they will send the requested mill rental income/expense detail and follow up by email with year-over-year comparisons for DOC hours and other metrics the council requested.

Ending: Council members praised parks staff for project delivery and volunteer engagement and asked staff to return with the requested financial and operational detail.