Lane Co. Parks maintenance is backlogged. Now it could cost at least $25 million to catch up

Inadequate funding and staffing levels for Lane County's parks have led the department to put off repairs, upgrades and replacement of crucial infrastructure, and the county is hoping voters will approve a new levy as the price tag to maintain the system is growing.

County staff estimate there’s around $25 million in deferred maintenance throughout the parks system, said Brett Henry, the county’s parks director.

And a consultant hired by the county said that volume of failing infrastructure is impeding maintenance workers’ ability to do routine maintenance.

“With the volume of deferred maintenance, they’re putting (on) Band-Aids," said Dean Leonard, a vice president with Faithful and Gould. "They’re dealing with critical items that they’re having to repair and fix and put Band-Aids on because there isn’t the right level of funding to replace.”

The global project and program management consulting firm has now completed two assessments of Lane County parks, finding:

• Around $16 million in deferred maintenance needs at Armitage, Baker Bay, Orchard Point and Richardson parks.

• About $5 million in deferred maintenance needs in a second phase of 13 parks, including Howard Buford Recreation Area, Harbor Vista and Perkins Peninsula.

Faithful and Gould recommended spending $3.5 million each year for 10 years to get caught up on crucial investments to fix parking lots filled with potholes, replace water tanks and pipes and make similar repairs.

Staff estimate the remaining parks will have another $2 million to $3 million in deferred maintenance needs, Henry said. The remaining county parks make up about 80% of the parks system but don't have many facilities.

The need has reached that level because the parks department has lacked the budget to do ongoing maintenance, Henry said.

That would change if voters approve a local option levy that staff are working to get on the ballot in November.

Staff has known there was a 'huge backlog of deferred maintenance'

Henry started with the county in summer 2018, and said staff has known since then that there was a “huge backlog of deferred maintenance."

Janelle McCoy, the executive director of Friends of Buford Park & Mt. Pisgah, has seen that first hand. One parking lot was in "abysmal" shape until the county and organization did some recent work on it, she said.

McCoy, who joined the organization in January 2020, said she wishes the group and the parks department had more funding. The parks department is dedicated but understaffed, she said.

McCoy thinks both the loss of timber revenues and other funding as well as short staffing to cover a parks system spread over a county that's nearly the size of Connecticut have led to the department having to put off work, she said.

Henry has made it a goal to determine the extent of the backlog that's a result of delaying work and to start reducing it.

Last year, Faithful & Gould delivered the results of an initial facilities condition assessment as part of figuring out the extent of needs. The firm is doing assessments in phases because of the county's funding constraints.

Those results showed four major parks were in poor or very poor condition and needed millions in investment:

• Richardson Park: Very poor condition with $7.87 million in capital investment needed immediately and more than $676,000 in the future.

• Orchard Point Park: Very poor condition, $3.97 million immediately needed and a little more than $905,000 in future capital spending.

• Baker Bay Park: In very poor condition with $2.62 million immediately needed and close to another $49,000 in future capital spending.

• Armitage Park: In poor condition with $1.48 million in immediate capital needs and $1.33 million in the future.

All but one of 13 assessed parks in poor or very poor condition

Faithful & Gould returned in October with the results of a second phase of its facilities condition assessment that included 13 parks.

That survey found another $4.97 million in deferred maintenance and classified all but one park as being in poor or very poor condition.

According to an executive summary, the parks are in varying conditions (from very poor to good) and need different levels of investment now and a total investment needed in the next 10 years.

Howard Buford Recreation Area, home to Mt. Pisgah and 17 hiking trails southeast of Eugene and Springfield, is at the top of the list for investment needed. The consultants said the popular park is in poor condition and estimate it will require more than $2.3 million in fixes, including hundreds of thousands to repair parking lots.

Perkins Peninsula Park on the south Fern Ridge Lake also is in poor condition. Consultants estimate the county will need to invest $1.6 million in the park over 10 years, including more than $600,000 to replace cold water service tanks that serve the pump house.

Westlake in Dunes City also is in poor condition, but the estimated cost of repairs is much lower — around $450,000 over 10 years, a large portion of which is more than $300,000 to replace a wooden dock.

Seven more parks are in poor condition — Archie Knowles, Bender Landing, Camp Lane, Farnham Landing, Hendricks Bridge, Linslaw Park and Zumwalt.

Consultants estimate Harbor Vista, which is rated in very poor condition, needs $1.1 million in investment. Upgrades called for at the park just north of Florence include $156,000 to replace copper water pipes − the park has a restroom that serves both a day-use area and a campground.

Only one park is in good condition — Triangle Lake, which is located near Blachly. Consultants estimate less than $11,000 in minor repairs at the park.

Commissioner Laurie Trieger described the presentation as depressing and said she agreed the parks need work.

The parking lot at North Jetty has some of the worst potholes Trieger has ever seen. She joked sea lions could play in them.

The consultants rated that coastal park in Florence in very poor condition and estimate the county will need to spend more than $900,000 on full-depth asphalt replacement.

Commissioner Jay Bozievich said he thinks consultants might have undershot on some of the estimated costs, especially with rising costs of materials.

That doesn’t change the need for investment, he said.

Commissioner Joe Berney agreed officials will need to hone in on specific costs and requests for funding.

“We know where this is going, and so I really want to understand the assumptions almost granularly,” Berney said.

Firm recommending $3.5 million annual investment

So far, Faithful and Gould has recommended the county spend $3.5 million each year in the 17 parks to catch up on deferred maintenance.

Dedicating $2.5 million each year to maintenance at Armitage, Baker Bay, Orchard Point and Richardson parks would get the parks system “above water” in terms of deferred maintenance by 2030, Leonard said in late 2021.

The firm also has recommended dedicating about $1 million a year for maintenance in the 13 parks assessed as part of the second phase.

Officials also could front-load some maintenance and otherwise “play around with the need and the funding levels” to match what’s available, Leonard said.

Some partnerships, such as the one with Friends of Buford, could help reduce costs.

The organization leases part of the north side of the park from the county and helps take care of about 90% of the park, McCoy said. The Mt. Pisgah Arboretum leases 209 acres and takes care of that space, she said.

"The parks department has not had a steady stream of funding, so they do rely on us, on the arboretum, to really take care of the park," McCoy said.

Friends of Buford Park & Mt. Pisgah works with the county to apply for grants, she said, and it has helped complete some work with volunteer hours and sharing of resources.

For example, volunteers recently helped reduce vegetation and help with sightlines at the east trailhead parking lot.

"We enjoy working with the parks department, and I think we both work really well together," McCoy said. "I obviously wish they had more money, but I think we hustle, and we try to find the best way to serve our community."

McCoy also has seen the parks department lean on other county departments to help with work. The roads department also helped with work at the east trailhead, she said, because it had extra gravel to help fill in holes in the parking lot, which was looking "abysmal" after recent spates of rain.

Levy could help provide needed funding if passed

Lane County could soon have more resources to help maintain parks and address the backlog of deferred work.

County staff are moving toward a goal of getting a levy on the Nov. 8 ballot that would generate enough to help dedicate millions each year toward maintenance.

A county task force recommended officials ask voters to approve a levy generating $6 million a year — which would cost the average homeowner less than $40 a year — and find ways to increase support for parks from other public funds.

The proposal that staff will ask officials to approve for the ballot likely will lower the ask to $5.5 million, Henry told officials earlier this year.

Bob Keefer, a consultant with the Special Districts Association of Oregon, said during a February meeting that the hope is to reduce the proposal to around $36 per year for the average homeowner by figuring out which projects the county could fund in other ways.

Parks "add something to our way of life here in Lane County," McCoy said, and that's become particularly clear during the pandemic as people needed a way to ground themselves.

It's hard to quantify what parks add to the quality of life, she said, but the levy would allow the county to invest more in the future, in families and in people having safe access to the parks.

More money could lead to more staffing, she said, which would enable the county to address deferred maintenance issues.

McCoy described investment in the parks as a "relatively small price to ask the community to pay for what it gives back."

Contact city government watchdog Megan Banta at mbanta@registerguard.com Follow her on Twitter @MeganBanta_1

This article originally appeared on Register-Guard: Lane County's parks likely have $25 million in deferred maintenance