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Cherokee County parks director presents 2025–28 strategic plan; board to consider formal adoption
Summary
At a March 18 work session, Parks and Recreation Director Jay Worley reviewed a 33-item strategic plan for 2025–28 that ties to the county's 2019 comprehensive parks plan and recent SPLOST funding; the Board of Commissioners will consider formal adoption at its evening meeting.
Jay Worley, director of Cherokee County Recreation and Parks, presented the county's Strategic Plan 2025–2028 at the Board of Commissioners work session on March 18, 2025 and asked the board to consider adopting the plan at the board's evening meeting.
The four-year plan lists 33 action items across five priority areas that mirror the county's 2019 Comprehensive Parks, Trails and Recreation Master Plan. Worley said the plan is the second phase of work tied to the 2019 master plan and the county's earlier strategic plan covering 2020'024.
Why it matters: the strategic plan lays out capital and program priorities for parks and recreation over the next four years and ties those priorities to funding and staffing moves already underway, including SPLOST dollars approved by voters in November 2023.
Worley said the department completed 34 of 38 action items in the 2020'024 strategic plan and identified 33 new tasks for 2025'028. Key highlights he emphasized include: opening multiple northeast-county parks (Long Swamp, Yellow Creek and Cochran Park) on the department's schedule; completing field renovations and synthetic-turf projects; adding inclusive-playground components as replacements or new installations; and creating programming that includes therapeutic and adult job-skills opportunities.
The director cited recent funding and grants that have supported projects. He noted the November 2023 park SPLOST referendum for $36,500,000 and said a $600,000 grant helped push the Long Swamp Creek project forward. Worley also said the department has received grants of up to $75,000 in recent years to support summer-camp opportunities.
Worley described the department's revised mission statement as "making life better by cultivating active communities through recreation while preserving our parks and facilities," and summarized operational goals including maintaining a staffing ratio of roughly one parks worker per 12 to 15 acres of maintained space and adding two parks workers for the opening of Long Swamp.
Worley also reviewed items not completed from the 2020'024 plan (for exemple, a dog park in north Cherokee and a shift of Woodstock recreation-center concessions into a learning kitchen), and said several unfinished items are carried forward into the new plan. He explained the department created a natural resources division in October to address maintenance-zone goals differently than originally planned.
The Recreation and Parks Advisory Board unanimously approved the 2025'028 strategic plan at its February 12 meeting, and the county manager asked the Board of Commissioners to formally adopt the plan as part of the evening agenda. Worley noted a planned opening date for Long Swamp Park of Friday, May 2, 2025.
The presentation contained financial and program items meant to guide capital spending, grant pursuit, staffing and accreditation work; Worley said the department is preparing for reaccreditation by the national parks accreditation body. The board did not take a formal adoption vote during the work session; a vote is scheduled for the evening meeting.
