Grant would help pay for kayak launch at Havens Gardens

Published 7:50 pm Thursday, February 4, 2016

Washington’s City Council, during its meeting Monday, is expected to accept a $1,500 grant from the Beaufort County Health Department to help build a kayak launch at Havens Gardens.

The grant, if accepted by the city, would be paired with a grant from Sound Rivers (formerly the Pamlico-Tar River Foundation) to help pay for building the kayak launch at the waterfront park, according to a memorandum from Kristi Roberson, the city’s parks and recreation manager, to the mayor and council members. The $1,500 would be used to buy items “needed to create a safe kayak launch ramp or improve Havens Gardens Park in order to increase and promote physical activity and a healthy lifestyle,” according to the memorandum.

During its July 13, 2015, meeting, the Washington City Council authorized the city’s recreation manager to apply for a Recreational Trails Program pre-application grant. The launching area would provide access to the Tar-Pamlico Blue Trail and connect two existing kayak/canoe trails. If awarded, the city must provide a 25-percent match, either with money or in-kind work and/or material.

Previously, the city sought up to $10,000 funding from the Adopt-A-Trails grant program to build a kayak launch at the Havens Gardens site, and it was approved to receive a grant for that project. Before the city received the funds, those funds were no longer made available through the program to complete that project and other projects the grant program had approved for funding.

In other business, the council is scheduled to consider adopting a budget ordinance amendment that appropriates $11,000 for the resurfacing of the tennis courts at Bug House Park. At its Nov. 9, 2015, meeting, the council voted to resurface the aging courts.

The council rejected other options related to tennis courts, including the following:

• remove the existing tennis courts at Bug House Park and build new ones at the existing location for a cost not to exceed $100,000;

• remove the existing tennis courts at Bug House Park and build new ones at the Susiegray McConnell Sports Complex at a cost not to exceed $100,000;

• maintain Bug House Park at its current condition.

At the Nov. 9 meeting, council members said that once those courts are refurbished, it wants usage of those courts monitored for about a year. Depending on usage of those courts during that time, the council may revisit the issue of building new tennis courts, possibly at other locations.

The council meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday in the Council Chambers in the Municipal Building, 102 E. Second St. To view the council’s agenda for a specific meeting, visit the city’s web­site at www.washingtonnc.gov, click “Government” then “City Council” heading, then click “Meeting Agendas” on the menu to the right. Then click on the date for the appropriate agenda.

 

 

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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