Shawnee County gets parks master-plan update after 427 survey responses; trails and wellness top priorities

The Shawnee County Board of County Commissioners received a detailed update May 11 on a Parks and Recreation master plan that consultants said is grounded in a statistically valid survey and ongoing facility assessments.

Tim Lorett, director of the county's Parks and Recreation Department, introduced the planning team and said the project has been under way for about five months. "We've been working on this now for, I don't know, about 5 months or a little over that maybe, and have made some, I think, some terrific progress," Lorett said.

Consultants said the plan followed four phases: discovery (site visits and community engagement), analysis, visioning and implementation. "So far, what we've accomplished, we've administered the statistically valid survey," said Nathan Harrell, a consultant introduced to the board by Lorett. "We collected 427 complete responses." The consultant team said that sample size produces a margin of error of about "3 to 4 percentage points." (Consultants attributed the margin estimate to the statistically valid instrument used in February.)

The project uses three engagement channels: a mailed statistically valid survey, an online engagement platform with interactive mapping and hypothetic budgeting tools, and stakeholder interviews. Consultants reported roughly 410 completed responses on the online platform and about 1,800 site visitors to date. They described the online tool as complementary to the mail survey but noted it is open to nonresidents and may show stronger interest from organized groups on particular issues.

Preliminary findings, consultants said, show program priorities centered on adult fitness and wellness programming, senior services and history/museum-related programming. On facilities, walking and biking trails ranked highest; other commonly cited needs included additional neighborhood parks, restrooms and, as a longer-term discussion point, an indoor pool.

Consultants also said they engaged youth using a shortened survey distributed through the Boys and Girls Club and received 55 responses from children (roughly ages 7 to 12), supplying youth-specific preferences for park features and programs.

The team is conducting facility assessments using a roughly 20-question scoring instrument and will produce single- or multi-page profiles for each facility. Consultants listed upcoming stakeholder meetings with the Topeka Area Sports Commission, TARC, CDDO, the Jayhawk Area Agency on Aging and the Capra Foundation, and said most stakeholder interviews are expected to be complete before Memorial Day, with a community open house slated for late July.

Local operational items discussed included maintenance and project work at Gage Park and Lake Shawnee, the carousel project, new courts and planned league-play moves to the upgraded Gage facilities. Officials said aquatic-center and golf-course clubhouse tours are scheduled as part of the assessment phase.

The board did not take policy action at the meeting; consultants said analysis and recommendations will follow as the team completes benchmarking and data synthesis.