Flagler County and the City of Palm Coast are partnering together and are working with Berry Dunn and Miller Leg, experts in the field of Parks and Rec planning and architecture to come up with a “Master Plan” for the future of our county and Palm Coast Parks. Art Thatcher, Berry Dunn Team Manager, was the head of this focus group, making sure everyone got a chance to answer questions, and explained what the goals of the focus groups were, about the process of this planning session, and how everyone will eventually have the chance to make their opinion heard.
During this part of the planning process they will hold a total of eight focus groups, and meetings with both the Flagler County BOCC, and the City Council and staff. There will be public meetings as well, the first of which will be tomorrow at 6 pm and the Palm Coast Community Center.
At this point in the process, no decisions have been made, and all parties are working together to get a feel for what the community wants. During all of these meetings, part of the team from Berry Dunn is out surveying all the parks in Flagler County and the City of Palm Coast, and grading them based off of quality, with 3 meaning the park is in excellent condition, and 1 meaning the park needs repairs and maintenance.
People in the focus group got the chance to rate the City’s and the County’s maintenance, customer service, programs offered, state of the parks and more. People also got to answer in depth about what qualities they liked best, what should be preserved moving forward, what needs improvement moving forward and strengths and weaknesses about the parks.
Focus group participants got the chance to talk about what demographics were being overlooked if any, and what kind of programs, amenities, and more. As things progress there will be online tools offered, survey’s for residents and even survey’s for children in the county to fill out in an effort to gain public opinion on how we, as a community in Flagler County and the City of Palm Coast, would like to see our parks and recreational facilities grow in the next 5-10 years.
The focus group closed by asking participants to talk about what is the number one thing they would like to see added to our parks and recreational facilities, what key people should be involved in this process, and what key issues should tackled, and things that should be preserved moving forward.
Residents of Flagler County and Palm Coast are invited to attend the public meeting on this subject tomorrow night, Thursday, February 16th at 6 pm, at the Palm Coast Community Center. The address for the Community Center is 305 Palm Coast Parkway.
