Vandalism adding to Parks’ crews workload

Mike DonilaOur Town Outdoors

We wrapped up the annual Holiday Festival of Lights at the Cove on Sunday evening with folks donating a combined $5,886.25 throughout the event and enough non-perishable food items to fill about 11.5 large barrels!

The event, which was free and ran most of December, will return next year.

We’ve held it for decades and the money and food go to the Love Kitchen, which provides meals, clothing and emergency food packages for the homebound, homeless and unemployed. That said, we don’t know what the final tally is. This year, we took Venmo donations for the first time and those payments were made directly to the non-profit, so we’re waiting to get those numbers.

We were hoping to set a record this year but the weather was so bad during the final week that a lot of folks stayed inside.

Last year’s festival set a record for non-perishable food items donated – enough to fill 16 barrels. A total of $7,428,49 also was donated. The prior year set the record in cash donations with $7,677 and 12 barrels of food.

As our folks made their way back from vacation and the holidays, they were faced with the typical vandalism that come from delinquents not being in school.

We had crews back out at Melton Hill Park, fixing posts and cables. Some knucklehead took an axe to them and chopped them up for firewood.

We also had someone vandalize the bench and information display along the Third Creek Greenway at the Civil War redan. The redan is an earthen encampment that UT anthropology professor Charlie Faulkner discovered by Cox Street while he was walking along the greenway with his wife in November 2006. It’s essentially a fort built from the earth and historians believe that Union soldiers likely built the redan in 1863 to protect a nearby wood railroad bridge over Third Creek.

Oddly enough, the Third Creek Greenway is a city greenway, but the small piece of property where the redan is located was actually donated to the county. It’s a neat area and features a bench and a historical marker/plaque. Anyway, some jacklegs vandalized it.

But our one-man machine Frank Christian got it fixed and cleaned up. Speaking of Frank, he’s been super busy, cleaning gutters at the building at Alcoaway Optimist Park, replacing a $150 sign (destroyed by vandals) at Guinn Road Park and stopping by the workshop to help with organization and clean up. He was also down at Concord Park and near the Cove, working to install new signs.

Additionally, we had crews taking down and removing dead trees from Tommy Schumpert Park and Concord Park near Northshore. The snow earlier this week really did a number on the trees, and if we have more snow, then we suspect our crews will be even busier.

The carpenters were at Beverly Park beginning the prep work on the new dog park. The first step is forming the concrete – the entrance, sidewalk and bench pads. From there, they’ll start building and installing the fences that separate the large and small dogs, which will be located on opposite sides.

We’ve held off work lately on the 44-mile-long Knox County Water Trail because the water (from rain and snow) is too high and fast right now.

On the recreation side, basketball resumes Jan. 8!

And, as a reminder: Keep an eye out this January for more details about “NFL Flag Football,” which we will offer in the spring.

In the Gibbs community, folks can make their recommendations for directors by Jan. 10. We’re looking for directors for youth baseball, youth softball, youth tackle football, youth flag football, youth cheer and youth basketball. Once that group is elected, the group will elect a chair, who will represent Gibbs Youth Sports on the Knox County Youth Sports Advisory Board.

The eligibility requirements per Knox County Advisory Board bylaws: “The members of the community YSAB are elected by members of the community of which they reside and will serve a term of three years. YSAB members may be re-elected and serve one additional term for a maximum of six consecutive years (This includes time served as a commissioner years prior to the establishment of the YSAB) after which they can remain as a non-voting member and serve on committees and subcommittees only.”

Each nominee will be added to a Survey Monkey Ballot that will be posted online. Please send nomination to Rachel.griffin@knoxcounty.org by Jan. 10 and vote on the survey until Jan. 24.

Here’s some photos of work across the county:

Mike Donila is communications director for Knox County government

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