Parks staff reports strong summer turnout; Cawley Creek makerspace draws no bids

Erica, a city parks staff member, told the Recreation and Parks Advisory Committee that Park Place served more than 1,000 participants in May and June and highlighted a string of public events: Touch a Truck drew about 2,500 attendees, a summer concert hosted roughly 1,200 people and a Juneteenth celebration at Newtown Park attracted about 2,000 attendees. "We served over 1,000 participants in May and June," Erica said.

Erica also reviewed construction and capital updates: the Autry Mill amphitheatre is progressing, the OC quad improvements are largely complete, and Greenway phase 2 preliminary planning is underway with the National Park Service. She said Creekside Park will be on the city council agenda Monday for contract approval.

On procurement, Erica said the city received no bids on the Cawley Creek Makerspace when it first went out to market. "We actually did not have any bidders when we put that out. We got no bids," she said, and staff are researching causes—timing and the project's scale were cited—and preparing the project for rebid. Erica noted the project budget is about $2,200,000.

Committee members asked staff to provide additional program-count detail after one member asked whether reported attendance numbers reflected unique individuals or total program sessions; Erica said the figures are attendance counts rather than unique-member tallies and offered to provide unique-member data if requested. "If you're interested in knowing, I can find it out," Erica said.

Votes at a glance: the committee approved the May 15 meeting minutes by voice/hand and later voted to adjourn at 07:32.

Next steps: staff will rebid the Cawley Creek Makerspace after scope/pricing adjustments and will return procurement updates to the committee.