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Suncoast Pasco News

New Park Trashed Before It Even Opens

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By Carl  Orth | The Suncoast News

Published: June 18, 2008

PORT RICHEY - Even before the park has officially opened, Lake Lisa Park already has drawn some complaints about trash at the site.

Construction is in the final phases for the neighborhood park on Regency Park Boulevard about midway between Ridge Road and Embassy Boulevard.

Ernie Setz of Port Richey recently wrote about his complaints the park should have been fenced off until it is ready. Cars parking on the grass has destroyed some of the turf, he noted in a letter to The Suncoast News. The grass has been worn down along Maplehurst Drive, the southern boundary of the park just north of Stone Road.

Setz generally regards the area as an eyesore. The county should patrol the area better once construction is done, he believes.

"It is heavily used," Martha Campbell, administrative services manager for the Pasco County Parks and Recreation Department, said of Lake Lisa Park. "It is not even officially open yet."

A grand opening might take place in the months ahead, perhaps by August, Campbell said.

No specific parks crew is assigned to Lake Lisa, Campbell said. A roaming county parks crew stops by several times a week.

"I think people should take better care of their neighborhood park," Campbell commented about abuse of the park. Perhaps volunteers will come forward to help at Lake Lisa since the county staff is stretched thin as it is with budget cuts.

Lake Lisa had been conceived as one of several smaller, neighborhood "passive" parks with limited facilities and without any permanent staff of its own.

Protests by some 300 residents in 2001 helped avert a low-income apartment complex with 160 units being built on the 15-acre site. In 2003 the county arranged to buy the property instead. A state grant for about $200,000, which the county matched dollar for dollar, helped the park project.

The contractor has installed a trail, picnic shelter, playground and basketball courts. Some culvert work remains and minor repairs on the playground, Campbell reports.

More neighborhood passive parks are in the works. The county hopes to develop 15 acres at Eagle Point, a coastal preserve with more than 600 acres total along Trouble Creek Road near Strauber Memorial Highway.

The state also put up half of the $400,000 available to develop Eagle Point near the entrance. Plans call for a nature trail, picnic shelter, playground, kayak launch and other limited facilities.

"That's going to be really incredible," Campbell said, although it might take another year or so before work begins. Construction has to start before the state grant expires in two years, she pointed out.

Carl Orth can be reached at 727-815-1068 or corth@suncoastnews.com.

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