PARAB

Went to my first PARAB meeting on May 7th. The highlights:

-Visited a site on the west end of town (across from the bottling plant) that some local is asking to turn into a park. Not gonna be a huge chunk of land, but it will include a half mile trail that could eventually lead to Ute Pass, Rainbow Falls, and the train tunnels. Could also open up a lot of space back to Greenstone Quarry and Greenstone Canyon. Not a purely philanthropic thing, as the guy owns some rental property near the proposed park, but I thought it was a great idea, especially since there ain't a whole lot going on in that part of town. There's a weird monument to "Amanda" back there that I've stumbled across, and finally got to hear the history of that (she was killed by a drug dealer). Anywho, I'm all about new trails so my first official vote with PARAB was a yes to moving forward with this project (actually, the vote was to waive all parks fees in exchange for the construction of the park and trail).

-Got an update on the creek walk that will eventually run from America the Beautiful park in downtown Colorado Springs to Soda Springs park. Everything for this project is already paid for and it should be completed by the end of the year. The only bad news is that they are probably going to replace the bridge near the Masonic temple. I love running across that bridge, wondering if I'm going to make it to the other side before it collapses...

-Voted to match a grant up to $500 for a new garden at Mansions Park. Mansions is where newlyweds go to get their pictures taken, so as you can imagine I don't really hang out there. But those kinds of peeps bring lots of cash into Manitou and the garden design looked pretty sweet. So if you run the Garden 10 miler a bit too hard, try not to puke there as we're dumping some serious coin into that area.

-Voted to give $200 to the locak Kiwanis club for Huck Finn days. It's a kids event, so I won't be anywhere near there, but it'll be a good event for the town. Still not sure why they spent so much time and effort to restock Schryver pond with fish if they're just gonna let a zillion kids with bamboo poles and hooks go fishing there.

-Denied a request for a volleyball court in Soda Springs Park. Too much stuff going on there, not enough space, and the requested permanent poles would be hard for festivals, such as the wonderful Manitou Craft Brew Festival, to work around.

Several other less exciting things happened, nothing too earth shattering. My political dreams of prostitutes and bribes and booze and drugs and general excess probably require me to move to a larger town if I want to see 'em happen. Though I'm sure the drama surrounding the upcoming parking battles will make for good blogging...