Servicing the city's parks

Cape Girardeau taxpayers spend $1.2 million on the city's parks division.

But none of the cash pays for swing sets, pools or trees.

The city has enough revenue to maintain and staff its 22 parks, but as it currently stands, the purchase of new equipment and structures rests exclusively on the shoulders of civic clubs and recreation groups.

City leaders welcome the gifts, but they also want to have the ability to improve the park infrastructure without depending on private donations. That's why city leaders are mulling the idea of a half-cent sales tax increase that, if voters approved, would fund $32 million in park projects.

Meanwhile, civic organizations are donating large-scale items to city parks. Without service clubs, Cape Girardeau would not likely have a skateboard park, Capaha Pool, swings at Arena Park or certain trees at Dennis Scivally Park.

Dakota Cowan, 13, splashes into the Capaha Pool.

Service clubs -- Optimists, Kiwanis, Rotary, Jaycees and others -- combine business networking with some form of community assistance. They've made a big difference in many of Cape Girardeau's 22 parks, according to Dan Muser, director of the city's parks and recreations department for 18 years.

Since 1994, service clubs have given the city more than $392,530, a sum that jumps to $2.3 million if the Jaycees' golf course donation is counted. Athletic clubs donate additional funds, Muser said. He said he is uncomfortable talking about who gave what and when. He doesn't want to offend any past or potential donor.

"Some have done more than others," he said.

The Optimist Club's mission is to help young people. Cape Girardeau's four chapters have given more than $253,502 since 1994.

The city's parks division budget this year reflects a 100 percent reduction in capital outlay, from $25,000 last year to resurface Arena Park's tennis courts, to zero.

This year, service clubs donated two playground systems and a shelter.

Last year, nothing.

"I don't project donations, because I don't assume we're going to get any," Muser said.

Donations come with costs. While parks get new attractions, installation and maintenance fees come out of Muser's budget. For example, the city will pay nearly $26,00 to install Shawnee Park Sports Complex's new $43,000 playground unit.

"If we were to hire someone to put up a shelter or playground, that would cost double of what we're spending," Muser said.

He's not complaining.

"I don't ever see donations as a bad thing," he said. "That's pretty much, to a large degree, the only way we've been able to get new equipment in the last 15 years or so."

More than 15 years ago, he said, the city removed two worn-out wooden playground structures from what is now known as Kiwanis Park.

"We didn't have anything to replace them with," he said. "We didn't have funding for that."

The parks division's $1,227,189 budget pays for workers salaries, utilities, contracted services and supplies.

On March 17, 2003, the city council voted to name a park after the Kiwanis Club when members donated $150,000 and pledged to revamp the space formerly known as Cherokee Park. Kiwanians have since added two shelters, improved the pond, paid for half the cost of street improvements and replaced a playground system.

Cape West Rotary has given $9,815 to municipal parks.

Ann Wagganer, president of Cape Evening Optimist Club, said park donations makes sense because they benefit children "for years and years and years. We members that have grandchildren remember when our children played on the equipment and the train in Arena Park," she said.

Her club's $198,704 in donations since 1994 have ranged from playground and barbecue equipment in Arena Park to $15,000 for Missouri Park's skateboard park.

Such things, Wagganer said, "benefit all kids, from all ages and any type of economic and ethnic background."

She said her club looks at getting the most use from a donation. "Capaha draws from all areas of the city. Arena is where we have the fair, and lots of kids play ball there," she said. The skateboard park got installed in Missouri Park "because that's where the kids seemed to congregate."

Muser said while parks are often talked about as nonessentials, they are part of what city dwellers expect.

"Most people like green space. If you have kids and they like to participate in sports and various recreational activities, that's a value," he said.

Though the parks and recreation advisory board members easily cut the cost of Shawnee Park Sport Complex playground from the proposed parks tax on Monday -- because the money was donated by Noon Optimists, Cape Area Youth Soccer Association and the late B.W. Harrison's estate -- they'll continue to wrangling the numbers in a special meeting at 5:30 p.m. Aug. 27 at the Osage Community Centre.

Whether the results will satisfy the City Council and voters remains to be seen.

pmcnichol@semissourian.com

Shelter at Shawnee soccer fields. (AARON EISENHAUER ~aeisenhauer@semissourian.com)

335-6611, extension 127

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By the numbers

Since 1994, area service clubs have donated nearly $400,000 to Cape Girardeau parks, including:

• $24,455 to Capaha Park (Broadway and West End Boulevard): The oldest park in Cape Girardeau's system, acquired in 1914, includes 39.3 acres and a 360,000-gallon pool. Cape Girardeau Optimist clubs donated $2,000 for the pool slide in 1996.
• $173,047 to Arena Park: (Kiwanis Drive and Kingshighway): The 90-acre community park includes the Arena Building, 10 shelters, 60 picnic tables, fields for baseball, softball and rugby; four tennis courts, two sand volleyball courts; and three restroom facilities.
• $119,211 (not counting $150,000 naming rights) to Kiwanis Park (Rotary Drive off of Perryville Road and Lexington Avenue) The 55.8-acre park has three shelters, one baseball field, a small pond, one playground unit and a restroom building.
• $49,500 to Shawnee Park Sports Complex (State Highway 74 and West End Boulevard): This 131.2-acre park includes five lighted 300-foot softball fields with scoreboards, covered dugouts, water fountains, changing rooms, restrooms and a concession stand.

This is also the site for twelve soccer fields, including three lighted tournament fields.

• $15,000 Missouri Park (Fountain Street and Park Drive) The 6.3-acre park contains a half-basketball court, green space and the only skateboard park in the City.