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Consultants present engagement findings for Lake Elsinore community services master plan; aquatics, trails top priorities
Summary
Consultants from BerryDunn and partners told the city council the community’s top priorities for parks and recreation investment are community events, fitness and wellness programs, and hiking/outdoor recreation; 72% of survey respondents rated parks good or excellent.
City-contracted consultants gave the Lake Elsinore City Council an update on the Community Services Department master planning process, summarizing public engagement and early findings and outlining next steps toward an action plan and an implementation workshop this fall.
Nikki Ginger, project manager at BerryDunn, and Elsa Fisher, the engagement manager for the effort, said the team used in-person pop-ups, community interviews, a bilingual session, an online engagement tool and a statistically valid survey to collect resident input. “We had over 812 visitors to that site,” Fisher said of the online tool, and the survey firm obtained more than 400 statistically valid responses.
Survey results presented to the council showed strong approval for existing services: 72% of respondents rated parks they visited as "good" or "excellent," and more than 75% rated programs as "good" or "excellent." When asked about top priorities for investment, residents ranked community events, fitness and wellness programs, and hiking/outdoor recreation as their top needs. For facilities, hiking trails, an aquatic facility and community gardens were listed among the highest priorities.
The consultants also reported strengths and areas for improvement: staff dedication and popular youth and senior programming were cited as strengths; residents asked for an aquatics facility (indoor or outdoor), more staff to run programming and maintain facilities, improved park safety and expanded trail connections.
Ginger said the team has already completed visioning with staff and a master planning committee and will draft an action plan that prioritizes short-, mid- and long-term projects. The full plan will return to council in the fall along with an implementation workshop to help staff use the plan operationally.
Clarifying details from the presentation: the consultant team included BerryDunn, Kimley-Horn (park development standards and CIP) and ETC (statistically valid survey); engagement included five consultant pop-up events plus five city-led pop-ups; ETC collected more than 400 statistically valid survey responses; the online engagement tool had about 812 visitors and 179 contributions. The consultants said they will return in the fall to present the draft master plan and host implementation training for staff.
