Make voice heard on parks plan
Take five minutes and make a meaningful investment in one of Bakersfield’s critical quality of life dimensions — our parks.
Bakersfield’s parks master plan is being updated to create the roadmap for the department’s future. Public input is always encouraged in local government but rarely are there such pivotal moments to provide your feedback.
As part of the plan update, there is a short online survey open to the public until the middle of July. The input compiled in this survey will shape our parks for years to come. The updated master plan will be the roadmap that the Parks Department follows — giving it much needed inertia to pursue a cohesive long-range plan. After the plan is updated, it becomes much harder for the city to pivot to provide different amenities, programs or to create entirely new parks that weren’t built into the plan.
Whatever it is you care about or want to change about Bakersfield’s parks, share it in your survey responses. Maybe you would like to see safety improvements made in our parks, you are passionate about a sport like pickleball or frisbee golf or you want to see an underserved area in need of more places to recreate. Here’s your chance to make your suggestions part of the long-range plan.
When I filled out the survey, my focus was on Bakersfield’s strategic and unique outdoor amenities that aren’t living up to their potential. We have access to incredibly dramatic scenery in the Kern River Canyon on the edge of the city, but no way to hike it. We have access to fantastic whitewater recreation and mountain biking within city limits, and the city has failed to embrace either of these sports as competitive quality of life advantages.
We have an incredible river that flows through our city that’s just a dry and dead riverbed for most of its length. Even when Bakersfield gets water back in the river, the animals and the habitat they depend on are still missing. River habitat restoration projects could convert much of the Kern River Parkway into a natural sanctuary like the Panorama Vista Preserve, but we must first make this and other high-impact projects a priority. Surely you have your own priorities, too, and they matter for the parks master plan update.
Unfortunately, my experience is that there are far more people ready to complain about a problem than there are people willing to change it. Now’s your chance to catalyze a change. You can spare five minutes, can’t you?
Go to www.research.net/r/2FNFZW9 to complete the survey.