Help wanted: Paradise seeks planners for town events
November 18th, 2013 Posted in OpinionPARADISE – They’d like to get by with just a little more help from their friends: “One day the mayor and I will be sitting on the porch sipping lemonade while others will be taking care of everything, instead of us doing everything,” City Councilman Kyle Smith said jokingly.
The Paradise City Council is organizing a parks and recreation committee to help them plan and carry out more community events for the Paradise area. The main goal of the committee is to help bring the community closer together.
“The point of the parks and recreation committee is to take some of the work load off of the council’s shoulders and onto the community at large,” said Smith. “What we need is a bunch of little events that don’t cost too much so that the community can see the value of supporting this committee.” Some of the suggestions include quarterly social events such as winter sleigh rides, movie nights at the park and service projects. They are also looking for suggestions for potential events from the community.
A letter will be sent out to residents of Paradise, Avon, Charlieville, and the “north fields” in early January that outlines the council’s plans. It will ask for volunteers to attend a meeting to appoint committee members. Jason Summers presented a draft of the letter to the council. Summers has been the parks and recreation committee chairman for the past three years and is leading efforts to organize a functioning committee to help plan future events. “At this initial meeting we would like to hear any feedback on a committee structure and appoint an initial group of directors,” Summers said.
The council discussed appointing members to oversee areas such as grants, fundraising, facilities and maintenance, service, youth sports, and community events, as well as others.
“We still need to figure out exactly what we want the committee to accomplish,” Smith said. “We’ll have to wait until the meeting before we can sort everything out.”
The council plans to base the parks and recreation committee structure after Nibley’s committee. “I have been really impressed with the events that Nibley’s committee has put on in the past,” said Councilwoman Margaret Obray. “I’d like to talk to them to see how they have done it in the past to get some ideas.”
The council hopes that through the parks and recreation committee they will be able to inspire more residents to help out.
“We need to start the fire that we have to help the community grow,” Smith said. “It is something you can’t force; we have to show them something that will really motivate them.”
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Tags: city council, Jason Summers, Margaret Obray, Paradise, parks and recreation committee
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