Purchase of park land comes first, alderman says

The Conway City Council held a committee meeting Tuesday to discuss the purchase of land for park use.

"We only had four aldermen show up to the last meeting and I thought we'd talk about this again to get broader input," Mayor Tab Townsell said.

The group discussed several tracts of land to use for ballparks, green space parks and trailsystems, but the main point everyone present wanted made clear was the land must bepurchased first.

"I think you need to make contact with the land owners and nail down some prices first," Alderman Andy Hawkins said.

Alderman David Grimes agreed and added he knows the city of Conway has several park-related needs, but the purchasing must come first.

"The bottom line is we need to buy land now before it all disappears," Grimes said. "We need to get land anywhere and everywhere - as much as we can get."

He also told the council once a piece of land is purchased, he didn't think it was necessary to spend millions of dollars to develop a site, but advised the group to wait and purchase more land for future use.

"This is not something that is going to happen over night," Hawkins added.

The council members looked at maps of the Hendrickson property and the Culberson property, both under consideration for ballpark use.

"More than likely Hendrickson is going to be a more expensive piece of land," Townsell said.

The group also discussed how much of each property was in flood plain.

"We don't want to get something we can't use," Alderman Theo Jones said.

Even though the city is searching for land for ballparks, Guy Murphy, who is a member of the Conway Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, said "there are plenty of things we need to do in addition to ballpark space."

"This is a much needed targeted audience, but it's a small targeted audience," Townsell said, speaking of purchasing ballpark space.

He added the audience in favor of more trail systems would be much larger.

"The first order of business is to finish what we've got and extend Tucker Creek," Townsell said. "If we could work with the trail systems and get the located green space along the trail, it would be literally like connecting pieces of jewelry together."

Bill Bethea, of the Conway Parks and Recreation Advisory Board, told the council he didn't want the land considered for green space parks to be overlooked.

"They're not large tracts of land, but they need to be obtained now," Bethea said.

Townsell told the group he would get several of the proposed tracts appraised and bring some prices back to them. He added he would contact various connections along Tucker Creek to see about extending the trail to Gatling Park.

The committee also considered ideas for the Youth Business Men's Association baseball complex.

Townsell told the group YBMA will have no fall baseball league because plans are being made to do some renovating at that time.

One of Townsell's suggestions was to get rid of the area that used to be the old rodeo arena and reconfigure that section of the park. He also suggested making both boys' fields and girls' fields a part of this complex.

"I will come back with a program of work at the YBMA for this fall," Townsell said. "And then have a grand re-opening at YBMA in the spring of 2007."

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(Staff Writer Jessica Montgomery can be reached by e-mail at jessica.montgomery@thecabin .net or by phone at 505-1236.)