New reservation system on the table for county parks

Hamilton County Parks and Recreation may get an online facelift, complete with an overhauled reservation system.

On Wednesday, the county commission will vote on a $65,600 revamp of the department’s web interface with potential campers and other park visitors.

In a recent meeting, Lee Norris, administrator of Hamilton County General Services Department, made a case for the digital investment to commissioners.

“This is a continuing effort to update the reservation program at our parks and recreation centers,” Norris said.

The department made in-house attempts to make scheduling and reservation improvements to the park system, but faced the challenge of a limited budget, he said.

“We are doing this now internally with our computer program that we designed, and it just wasn’t effective,” Mayor Jim Coppinger said.

Norris attributed much of the driving force behind the online reset to a recent public forum at Chester Frost Park, which provided the county with feedback from campers and other park users.

General Services finally decided it needed to hire government website design firm CivicPlus, which Norris described as “the best of the best.”

“This company represents a lot of the larger cities and counties in Tennessee and throughout the United States, and gives us a lot more capabilities than what we were originally looking for,” Norris said. “I think this is the best value for the dollars spent to get us into the 21st century in parks and recreation scheduling.”

The proposed agreement also includes $18,661 in annual maintenance fees.

Commissioner Tim Boyd asked Norris how the commission would justify the expenditure.

“How are we saving money or how are we making money?” Boyd asked.

The biggest savings result from reducing staff and IT time trying “to maintain a system that actually functions correctly,” Norris said.

However, it goes beyond that, he said.

“Once this thing is completely incorporated, a parent looking to find out where their child is going to be playing ball can pick up their cellphone, dial into the program and see exactly where they are scheduled to play and what time,” Norris said. “It removes a lot of the ambiguity from what we’re doing right now.”

The biggest advantage of a revitalized online park presence comes down to ease of use and reaching a broader population, he said.

“We’ll have a lot better visibility on available campsites, how long they are rented for, who would like to have them,” Norris said. “It’s a good way of putting our policies online so people know what to expect when they get to the campground. It’s a winwin for both us and the citizens of Hamilton County and the surrounding area.”