Projects await parks director

Spokane Valley’s new Parks and Recreation director, Mike Stone, had several construction projects and his first budget setback on the day he arrived last week.

Minutes after Stone was introduced to the City Council on March 18, the council reluctantly accepted an above-estimate swimming pool construction bid that put a $668,847 hole in the parks budget.

City officials will have to transfer money from the parks land-acquisition fund and delay improvements at Terrace View Park.

But major renovation of three pools will start soon, and work will proceed on a “universal” playground at Mirabeau Point Park, a new park in the Greenacres area and major improvements at Valley Mission Park.

The Legislature has just awarded the city $300,000 for the Greenacres park.

“It’s great to have some things to hit the ground running on,” Stone said.

Stone had been Spokane’s Parks and Recreation director until Dec. 13, when Mayor Mary Verner fired him for unspecified reasons.

But Spokane Valley City Manager David Mercier said Stone rose from a field of approximately 40 candidates – including a half-dozen finalists from Washington, Idaho and California.

The candidate search, aimed at the western United States, was conducted with help from an executive recruiting firm.

Recruiters and city officials “spoke with a number of folks and were satisfied that Mike would perform well in Spokane Valley,” Mercier said. “We believe Mike has the appropriate qualifications and experience to help serve our program needs very well.”

He noted that Spokane Valley has a different form of government from Spokane, as well as “a different set of programs and perhaps a different set of needs than in Spokane.”

Stone declined to comment on his dismissal in Spokane except to say he accepted it as the “prerogative” of a new administration.

“I enjoyed my experience with the city of Spokane, and I take a lot of pride in the things I accomplished there,” he said. “I look back on my experience in Spokane with nothing but good feelings.”

Stone had been with the Spokane Parks and Recreation Department more than 25 years. Before becoming interim director in March 2000 and director in November 2001, Stone managed the department’s Operations Division and was its golf manager.

As department director, Stone had a $101,331 annual salary and was responsible for a $17 million budget, a staff that ranged from 85 to 400 according to the season, and 55 developed parks.

As Spokane Valley’s parks director, Stone will be paid $90,000 a year. He will be responsible for a $2.64 million budget, a staff that ranges from 10 to 40, and 10 parks – including one he’ll have to develop.

Stone’s responsibilities also include the 54,000-square-foot CenterPlace Regional Event Center and the semiautonomous senior center it houses. City officials want CenterPlace to book more events that will bring out-of-towners to Spokane Valley for several days at a time.

The park directorship had been vacant since November, when former director Mike Jackson was elevated to deputy city manager.

Jackson said the unexpectedly high price for renovating three swimming pools – which got worse when the city called for new bids – will delay some improvements at Terrace View Park at 24th Avenue and Blake Road.

New playground equipment still will be installed next year, but a picnic shelter and new sidewalks will have to wait, Jackson said.

However, the contract that caused the delay will upgrade the Terrace View pool and add a “lazy river” attraction. The Park Road pool will get a water slide, and Valley Mission Park will get a beach-like training pool.

Jackson said city officials hope work can get started later this year on other improvements planned at Valley Mission Park. Plans call for new picnic shelters, sidewalks, playground equipment and security lighting.

The recently approved $300,000 state grant for a new park in Greenacres is to be matched with $200,000 of city money. City officials had applied for $500,000 from the state, and the City Council may want to go back for the remaining $200,000, Jackson said.

With the extra money, the city would have $1.2 million to develop the 8.2-acre park at the corner of Boone Avenue and Long Road. The development money is separate from the approximately $500,000 the city and state put up in equal shares to buy the land.

The land adjoins a 13-acre playground site for a future school. Jackson said the city has a gentleman’s agreement with the Central Valley School District to develop the park and playground together.

Jackson said the park probably will have restrooms, playground equipment and a picnic shelter or some other special feature.

City officials would like to have the park under construction next year or the year after.

Stone’s most unusual challenge is to develop a “universal” playground, so called because it must appeal to people of all abilities and ages.

The playground in the 54-acre Mirabeau Point Park is to have features that stimulate the senses, and that connect people with nature and each other.

Some possibilities include interactive sculptures, such as one Jackson saw at the Anchor Center for Blind Children in Denver: a boy with a hammer, poised to strike a graded set of wrenches strung on a rope like xylophone keys.

A bucket of real hammers at the boy’s feet gives visitors a chance to make their own music or at least whack the wrenches.

A gently undulating sidewalk could give people in wheelchairs a sensation not available to pedestrians. Blind, sighted and wheelchair-bound people all could have fun finding their way to the snack bar if sidewalk sections got progressively shorter.

“It’s an open slate right now,” Jackson said.

“I would think it would be hugely popular with all sorts of groups,” Stone said.

The state Legislature liked the idea well enough to put up $800,000 last year, to be matched with $200,000 of city money.

City officials hope to design the playground this year and have it built next year. They’re negotiating a contract for design work with a Wenatchee company, Ecoplan and Design Concepts.

The contract is expected to be presented to the City Council within two months.