by Nicole Bradford
New amenities are good, but Pearland’s existing park facilities aren’t getting any younger, city staff reminded Pearland council members during a capital project discussion.
“We can’t build things and not adequately resource those from a maintenance and operations standpoint,” City Manager Trent Epperson told council members Oct. 28.
Aging equipment and adequate staffing of recreation facilities were among the expenses discussed in the coming five years.
The parks department recently made shifts in how its sports fields are rented in an effort to recoup most costs. Ideally, city staff said, funds for upkeep of parks won’t come from bonds.
“We would like to develop a structure where we are putting money aside for the maintenance items we know are coming,” Parks and Recreation Director Carry Capers said.
Projects are prioritized based on a recent condition assessment that rates facilities. Two of those – refurbishing the splash pad and replacing the playground at Southdown Park — were built into the new fiscal year budget through the use of parkland dedication funds.
Parkland dedication funds come from fees paid by developers to accommodate the needs of new residents.
Also needed is replacing field lighting and scoreboards at Veteran’s Sports Complex, playgrounds at Creekside, Cypress Village, and Centennial Park, plus various signs and fencing.
“Some of these projects are several years out, but they are coming, and we need to plan for those,” Capers said.
Large items such as field lighting and scoreboards could potentially go into a bond proposal, Epperson said, “but in an ideal world, we’d be able to fund maintenance type replacement of playgrounds, refurbishment of pavilions, those sort of things through setting funds aside like we do for vehicles.”
