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Home > News
May 29,2009
Dufur Parks Gain Friends
Meetings Wednesday will help Dufur City Park move forward
By Kathy Gray of The Chronicle
Dufur City Park’s leaders may be wondering where the park’s next tax dollars will be coming from after its bond failed this month, but an energetic new group has formed to help support its cause.
Friends of Dufur Parks recently formed as a nonprofit organization “to support, encourage and contribute to the use and improvement of parks in the City of Dufur, Oregon for the benefit of its residents and visitors,” according to the group’s vision statement.
Friends will hold its first community meeting on Wednesday, June 3 at 7 p.m. at Dufur City Hall. Its organizers encourage the public the come. They hope to enlist more volunteers, as well as donations for park improvements.
Friend’s efforts began around November, when RARE planner Nora Donovan, who is working for a year at the Port of The Dalles, turned her eye toward Dufur.
Dufur is within the Port’s taxing district, which reaches almost to Tygh Valley, and the port commission wanted to find a way to benefit the Dufur community.
Donovan met with the park board, conducted surveys and public meetings, then drafted a master plan for the park.
“The recreation district and the park are a big economic development thing in Dufur,” Donovan said. “People from all around come there, but it needed a lot of improvements, as well as regular maintenance and a big overhaul of the pool.”
Donovan’s 35-page master plan outlines existing conditions at the nine-acre park, which includes a football field, baseball diamond, RV hookups and tent camping, as well as the pool, playground area, a covered picnic area and other amenities.
It also includes what is unofficially the world’s longest picnic table at 150 feet. Dufur residents are seeking official status through the Guiness Book of World Records.
But many of its facilities are aging. The pool and pool building were built 60 years ago and Donovan’s report describes them as “outdated and heavily used.”
The pool requires yearly repairs just to stay open. The restrooms were rebuilt in 1989, but neither these nor the restrooms in the pool building can be easily accessed by physically disabled users.
Goals listed under the plan include ADA-compliant bathrooms, and reconstruction of paths and seating for the same purpose, construction of a new, covered pool, enhancement of grounds and more community gathering spaces, among others.
“It was probably around February when we realized that public funding wasn’t going to be enough,” Donovan said. The nonprofit organization will help the district tap into funding from private foundations and other sources.
All the goals aren’t immediately attainable, Donovan noted, but she bit off a small chunk by applying for a $39,431 state parks grant to build accessible restrooms and showers. The grant was submitted in April. Dufur will be required to provide a 20 percent match for the grant.
Dufur resident Chris Ley eagerly took on the role of chairman of the Friends board.
“Now, more than ever, it’s important for the Friends of the Dufur Parks to help be a key communications piece in educating the public on exactly what the vision of the park is, maybe eventually what it can be and some of the recent shortfalls,” Ley said.
The Friends have already received one grant. The City of Dufur awarded the group $750 to pay for their application for federal 501(c) (3) status. This is the designation that allows donations to such organizations to be exempt from federal income tax. The Friends have already been incorporated as a nonprofit in Oregon.
Ley gives the Port and Donovan full credit for making the effort possible.
“She wrote the master plan, did all the nonprofit status documents, the minutes, the organizational papers, the filing papers — everything you could think of,” he said. “We reap the benefits by attending a few meetings here and there. I’m in awe of what the Port has done.”
Ley is a regular user of the park, like many Dufur residents with families.
“The pool in the summer is a magnet for kids in the Dufur community,” he said. “I have four kids in Dufur. I spend more time at the pool than at home in the summer.”
Ley also wants to see the Friends of Dufur Parks be a voice for the park and the recreation district board.
Steve Kramer, who serves as chairman of the recreation district board until the end of June, when he leaves the board, has also volunteered his time to serve on the Friends board.
“As a board member on the foundation, I think the potential is only limited to the direction of the board,” Kramer said. “If we have a lot of gung ho people who want to go for it, things will get done.”
Kramer sees his role on the board as providing “an old guy’s perspective. They’re all young ones. They’re all gung ho. Some of the older fellows directed me when I started in the game a long time ago.”
Kramer believes the Friends can do good things to benefit Dufur parks — he emphasizes the plural with the idea that Dufur may have more than one park in the future.
He’s also concerned about the failure of the park’s operating levy, which failed for the first time in its history.
“I think it was the way the title was written on the deal,” he said. The wording included the phrase “may increase your taxes,” but Kramer noted that it is the same levy taxpayers have been funding for years. Increases, he said, would only affect homes where the assessed value went up.
The levy’s failure puts continued operation of the pool at risk, he said.
“Pools drain your money,” he said. “Propane at $18,000 for three months, sucks the money out of your operating budget.”
The recreation district board will also meet Wednesday, June 3, at 4:30 p.m., just ahead of the Friends meeting at 7. They’ll be discussing next steps, including the possibility of seeking the levy again on the September ballot.
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PeopleSpeak
"There were some zoning issues that arose during our initial investigation of the Port site. The Port staff worked with the City and got the issue resolved. We now have a new facility on the Columbia River that we are very proud of."
Rod French
District Manager, Oregon Dept.of Fish and Wildlife
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