Remember the Canby Dog Park? It’s a project that’s been openly discussed and hoped for by Canby residents since at least 2012, when the Friends of the Canby Dog Park Facebook page was founded.
How about a splash pad? It’s been the most requested items by users of the Canby park system for years. Much smaller communities in the surrounding area, like Hubbard, have one, but not us.
There’s no doubt that these items will be among the many discussed in the new master plan that is being laid out for Canby’s Parks & Recreation Master Plan, which has not undergone a major revision since it was completed in 2002.
But this revisioning process will take months, and at the last City Council meeting, Mayor Brian Hodson said he is giving staff and the parks advisory board the go ahead to begin the planning and other preliminaries on these “surefire” items.
Mayor Hodson said he is working on some detailed direction to present to the parks advisory board at their meeting on Tuesday. In addition to long-awaited projects like the dog park and splashpad, Hodson wants the board to look forward, to what Canby may need or want for the next 30 years.
“That takes planning and talking with people,” Hodson told us. “What do we put into place for those that live here as well as for those that are not even here yet?”
Of course, this doesn’t mean that construction will start tomorrow, but it’s nice to see progress and a continued commitment to projects that some residents had virtually given up hope of ever seeing. We hope to have some more news on these fronts to report to you soon, so stay tuned to the Canby Now Podcast.
Photo courtesy the Canby Area Chamber of Commerce.