And Jeffris park is used for what and when??

Article (not blog) about this topic, with additional postings:
http://gazettextra.com/news/2012/oct/26/...

I would be willing to mow a park or two if the city lets me claim adverse possession with an excelerated time frame on all or a portion of said property.

A few points:
* Garbage truck replacement was due anyway. We changed to a type that should save money in the future instead of buying the same type as before.
* The Buy-Rehab-Sell program does not come out of the general budget. It is federal block grant money and it is a revolving fund, meaning they take revenue back in and spend that.
* RECAP workers already serve on park clearance operations, including with the Friends of Rockport Park and the Ice Age Trail Alliance. It is unlikely that there are enough RECAP worker hours available to fully replace any city workers (these are not prisoners as such, they are generally working off fines). There are supervision and training costs with them operating equipment.
* Rockport Park trails are maintained by the Janesville Velo Club mountain bikers and the snowshoer/skiers (name of group I forget).
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Groups that are interested in saving a neighborhood park should contact the city about starting a Friends group. I believe a contract needs to be in place before performing any major work. Parks that have Friends groups will probably not go on the "sell" list.
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My own perspective is that we are undergoing some rough years as far as city revenue but our long-term (5-10-25 year) prospects remain healthy. We should not rush to squander a resource we may regret having given up in the future.

Their are about 5-7 parks in Janesville that are underutilized. If we did not have to care for them the city could potentially save $60,000-$80,000 a year. That's alot of money.
I see three options:
Let the community surrounding those park lands do the maintenance.
Ask for a group to volunteer / adopt the park to take care of the maintenance.
Sell/give back the parkland
The rest of the parks are vital to the identity of Janesville and provide another amenity that makes janesville the City it is.

true JW- if they privitze our parks may end up looking the the Monteray.

Is privatizing parks, maintenance, and upgrading buildings a really good idea? Do you want private entities controlling our recreational lands which, in many instances, were donated to our city for public use. If we had a social "contract" with people of the past to care for donated lands, then, shouldn't we honor previous commitments? What's next, the privatization of the water we drink and the air we breath? In America today one can sell almost everything. What's next, selling yourself and your loved-ones into slavery? Where has our public responsibility gone? Shouldn't we make our own private commitment to support a public park system which has served us so well for over 100 years?

Yet our city buys new garbage trucks claiming a savings from less injuries to the workers...Maybe we could use some real prosperity in our communities. All I see is cut, cut, cut. Why? Anybody else ever wonder. Unless the individual park is not being used, which would make sense then, the parks should remain open and taken care of. It is the essence of our community.

Rotary Gardens does NOT use City money!

FLiiping houses and now in the "selling land" business.
I do agree this is a good idea to sell some of those single lots that are called parks. They aren't really bigger than playing in your own yard. If they didn't sell I would be okay, if I lived near, sharing the law mowing with all of the neighbors. Moving the city parks every 8 days could be changed to every 10 or how about- rocket scientist idea_ WHEN it needed to be mowed. Sometimes you can go a couple weeks.It isn't like they water them.
A green empty lot with one chair doesn't make it a park!
Ask the neighboring home to the park if they would buy the lot for a fair price. This is what I would do vs helping mow it.
The medium parks should stay as well. ONe that actually have swings etc on them. One near Court House hill area. One near Terrace- I believe. ETc.

Racine County had non-violent inmates mowing the medians to keep people safe last year since they couldn't afford more trimmings than that. The Unions filed. We should use non-violent inmates to maintain the parks. We are already spending our tax dollars on them. Why not? Also I hope the city council listens to the people of the city.

Keep the big main ones, and sell off the others...
Times and $$$ just don't justify all these small parks anymore...

"intheloop, I think that is a great idea but will the city worker's union file a grievance?"

frusion your point is exactly why we don't have inmates doing that work.

intheloop, I think that is a great idea but will the city worker's union file a grievance?
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truthteller, I really like your opinion on the paths in Rockport Park. Why on earth do they need to be cut back so far? Half the fun of hiking is weaving through brush. How much fun is it to walk through a woods on a 15ft wide path? I've hiked in heavily used trails in Yosemite and the Smoky Mountains and the trails were not cut back and smoothed out as much as Rockport Park is.

I love that no matter where I live in Janesville, there is either a nice big park or a cute little neighborhood park! For a city of our size, this is a wonderful thing. Why not try Adopt a Park just like DOT does Adopt a Highway?

tikiman1 - People that would be up to no good can not hang out in parks anyway. We used to hang out there a few years ago, a bunch of friends would all meet up and hang out and the cops kicked us out of the parks. So your theory about needing more police if we close parks is a wash. People already cant hang out and socialize anywhere...thats like a crime in this city.

How about using the people sentenced to community service or the jails's RECAP inmates to offset the upkeep costs of these parks.

Friends groups have brought many parks back to their original beauty. Riverside Park is a perfect example. The park regressed before the recession and GM left and the Friends group stepped up in the early 2000s to reclaim the jewel! Traxler and Lustig are a few more examples. We also have some wonderful neighborhood parks.

To answer the question in the title of the article - I say yes, our parks are worth the price.

Steve Knox
Chair, Leisure Services Advisory Committee

Anybody that thinks that selling off the city parks is a good idea is a fool. The city will easily spend the amount of money saved plus more on extra policing of the streets because people don't have these places as an outlet. It happened when they got rid of the pavilions and games that they used to have at them when I was a kid. I saw it first hand. The kids got in a lot more trouble. Completely removing the parks would be even worse.

Flick, you are right - when I moved out of the city and now am in a township, my property taxes are about 60-65% of what they would be for the city and that's including the trash pickup that gets put on our taxes, as we don't have water bills.

Also wanted to add that I had to make major cuts in my household too. I was the big meanie for doing so but each one of my special interest groups(kids and wife) still have a roof over their head and food in their tummies. It's about doing the responsible thing and not putting myself closer to losing everything scenario. Sure we could still do all the extras but with the risk of getting over my head is very real to me.

Optimist park is totally funded and maintained by Optimist. There is no cost to the city for this park. What we need is more service clubs and private to undertake maintaning there neighborhood park if they want to keep them. Other wise sell the small parks off and put the money into the park system for maintenance. Optimist park is heavly used by Lacrosse, soccer, and football. The Optimist spends over 3500.00 to mow, fertilize and resead each yr. Next spring the Optimist will be building a pavilion for everyone to use with electricity for family picnics and get together. Again no cost to the tax payers all pd by Optimist.

How about privatizing the park maintenance? This could be huge. The trail system could be put on hold until better economic times. The city could quit finding project like rotary gardens,tallmen house,aquajays and so on.

I too think the big parks should stay- riverside, Palmer, lustig, Monterey, tracker. Rockport should cut back on the trails and leave the ones that are foot paths stay that way instead of turning them into roads. The outdoor lab should do the same- we don't need all the paths paved and turned into roads so the fat out of shape guy that is in charge of it can drive his suburban around the park. Believe me kids will get much more out of this place on little foot paths than paved roads and graded and contoured paths.

More is not better. Janesville got caught up in the "most parks" to the point that they labeled any small chunk of city owned property a park! I've had to laugh at some of the parks they've designated and named...no bigger than a couple of house building sites. Plant some grass, put in a swing or two, put up a sign and call it a park. Not once giving consideration to anyone actually using it or how we were going to financially be able to maintain it (i.e mowing??).

The entry to Riverside used to be kept up nice till this year when the big hill was let go to weed.

It's time to consider thinning out the 'vacant lot' parks. There's a variety of parks that are simply small sections of undeveloped land that boast no ammenities and require maintenance and upkeep (driving over to mow and trim trees isn't free). Instead of paying to maintain unusable 'green space' like those small lot parks, perhaps it would be wiser to thin off the bottom 5-10% and get them back on the tax rolls as lot extensions to a neighboring property (in all likelihood, most would continue being 'green space'). Real parks should provide value beyond being occasionally mowed vacant lots that tend to accumulate trash.

The parks have retail hours...lol. So what we are paying for these can only be enjoyed between certain hours. So if you work 3rd shift and want to go to the park for lunch you can get arrested for doing so.
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I say keep the big parks, Traxler, Palmer, Riverside... and the 400 little ones let the people that live around them take care of them. A lot of parks are surounded by houses and not very accessible to the public anyway.
Why do we need so many?
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Janesville also used to be known as GM town, and a car town...Till the JPD banned any car cruises and GM left. Stuff changes.... I vote get rid of most the parks... just abandon them.

Once you have lost a park you will never get it back
The rich will buy up the land & make a lot of money