There are 75 acres of shovel-ready acreage for a community park, complete with public pool, pickle ball courts and soccer fields, in the Three Springs subdivision, well within Durango city limits.
Imagine, if you will, a sister park to Santa Rita, “Sacred Springs.”
Parks and Recreation forfeited their commitment to the aforementioned community park in 2007. However, city planners choose, instead, to invest more monies in the losing proposition of improving motorized access to the public mud hole at Lake Nighthorse.
Last year, they spent over $70,000 on a “statistically valid” parks and rec survey of Durango residents, and this year they decide to ignore the survey and the opinions of their constituency. It seems they prefer to spend tax monies on trails to and boat ramps in inaccessible, sunken or muddy parks.
I urge you to come to Three Springs, walk or bike The Spur Line Trail and experience the beautiful valley setting for the 75-acre park and 40 acres set aside for future middle and elementary schools. You’ll have to drive yourself. Durango Transit Authority decided to discontinue any service to Three Springs and Mercy Hospital. And the long-promised extension of the Animas River Trail to Three Springs is still dead-ended at Home Depot.
So you can’t walk or ride your bike here. Evidently, those amenities were not “statistically valid.” It’s called “planning” in Durango. And so it goes.
William G. Frederick
Durango
