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Gladstone commissioners like city’s recreation plan

GLADSTONE — City commissioners praised and approved the 2020 Gladstone Recreation Plan Monday.

“(It’s) pretty in-depth, I like it,” Commissioner Darin Hunter said. “There’s a lot of long-term plans.”

The recreation plan includes the overall vision and goal for the recreational areas of Gladstone — backed up by data from the Gladstone community, environment and land use. It also includes short-term and long-term improvement goals with a five-year implementation plan.

Parks and Recreation Director Nicole Sanderson explained the plan is updated every five years.

“We go through our short and long-term plans and we have to come up with new ones all the time — so its not just a plan that sits on a filing cabinet somewhere. It definitely does get used,” Sanderson said.

She added it keeps the department on track on past, present and future projects.

Although there were no community comments about the plan during Monday’s meeting, there were plenty when the department and recreation board were preparing it.

“There were lots and lots of comments this time,” Sanderson said. “From our public hearings, from our community input (and) from our surveys that we had sent out.”

Something many of the commissioners liked seeing was the continued utilization and improvements of existing recreational areas.

“I like the fact that we’re trying to utilize the acreage up on the Bluff, basically to the fullest extent that we can,” Hunter said.

He added the site went from being an old dump site to a continuously growing recreational area for the community of Gladstone.

Mayor Pro Tem Brad Mantela said he gets comments all the time about how amazing it is for a community the size of Gladstone to have as much of recreational opportunities as it does.

“That’s one of things I think is fantastic is for a community this size, I get comments on it all the time, how many recreation opportunities there are,” he said.

He said he tells people the reason why Gladstone is able to provide as much as it does in recreation is because recreation is a focus and goal of the Gladstone community.

The Gladstone City Commission unanimously approved the resolution.

The plan will be sent to the state, which allows the recreation department to apply for grants.

The plan is also incorporated into the city’s master plan.

In other business, the commission:

– approved the MERS Health Care Savings Program Participation Agreement for a Public Safety employee and authorized Manager Eric Buckman to sign the agreement. A PSO employee wanted to increase his contribution to his MERS Health Care Savings Program, to accomplish this the commission had to approve the participation agreement.

– reviewed the year to date financial report, which was slightly updated from the year to date report provided at the budget workshops last week.

– City Clerk Kim Berry reminded the commission and public, the Gladstone City Commission meeting dates in March were moved to March 16 and March 30 because of the upcoming election.

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