From the Director’s Office

Our Interview with Lee Jones; Director, Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation

Expect a busy spring for Mecklenburg County Parks; with new greenway openings, events, spring sports leagues, and camp registrations already underway. As we approach the longer days and calendars full of outdoor activities, Director Lee Jones has Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation looking far into the future.

Director Jones took a moment to sit down with us and graciously answer a few questions about upcoming projects and priorities.

This spring, we’ll see some long-awaited openings along some stretches of Greenway here in Mecklenburg County—most notably, the connector between Brandywine and Tyvola, and the extension past the James K. Polk house. Have you had a chance to see any of them lately?

You know, I had some friends come in from out of town and they were on their way back to Massachusetts … and I said maybe the four of us can get together and go for a walk. So they picked up and we met at the Little Sugar Creek Greenway and we went to the Polk site.

And I had another friend come by. We went the other way. We went to the Polk site. We looked at the historic house. It really, really is a nice, beautiful stretch of Greenway. We really enjoyed that. So I’m glad to see the public enjoying it, and the director’s enjoying it, too!

Mecklenburg County Commissioners recently wrapped-up their budget retreat in preparation for the new fiscal year which begins in July. What’s that mean for parks, greenways, and other projects?

I think one of the biggest things is land acquisition, and how much are they going to give us for land. We have more offers out there than money we have available, and that’s to make sure that we’re able to spend the money, prioritize in our target areas, in areas for greenways and areas where we need to make connections, and finish some of our facilities, in accordance with the Meck Playbook.

And how is that reflected in the Capital Improvement Plan?

So, you know, our capital improvement plan, is also guided by the Meck Playbook, the County Manager’s vision, the priorities of the Board and our strategic plan, internally. The last CIP was for just under $300 million from FY 19 to 23. This year we submitted over 80 projects (totaling $1B), all prioritized and not knowing what the county’s bandwidth would be. So the County finance department, budget department and Manager’s office and the Board has to do a balancing act. They have to see what sort of things that they have to do, what are they mandated to do, what’s being pushed for by the community, what aligns with their goals and the projects.

So we don’t expect to have 85 projects approved, but we do think that our value in terms of dollars is going to be higher than it was for 2019 to 23 or 24 through 2028. Part of this due to inflation and things along those lines, but it’s also due to the way we’ve approached it. So we’re looking forward to seeing what the final outlay would be.

The next step in the budget process is an April 11, 2023 Public Policy Workshop with Mecklenburg County Commissioners for a detailed review of all projects to be funded.