COMMUNITY

Watch your step: KLL parking lot might get redo

Paving the parking lot at the main entrance to Keizer Little League Park has been a top priority for the park’s caretakers and managers. Now, there is a new push to move the project up on the city’s to-do list.

“The largest concern is the liability when elderly visitors cross that lot,” Clint Holland told members of the Keizer Parks Advisory Board at a meeting Tuesday, Aug. 11. “It’s a liability for [Keizer Little] League and the city.”

Holland is a longtime advocate and volunteer for the park as well as a member of the parks board.

Holland reported one elderly visitor had recently fallen in the parking lot and requested that the project be moved up on the schedule of planned parks improvements.

Holland said a two-year-old estimate placed the cost to repave at approximately $80,000, but he expected it to have risen by somewhere between 10-20% since then. Holland said he’d spoken with some city administrators about moving the project up and he was told that a recommendation would be needed from the parks board.

“All that’s there now is dirt that’s been compacted,” Holland said.

Despite the urgency suggested by Holland, some parks board members began tapping the brakes. “We need to discuss what other projects are coming up on the schedule and how moving this one would affect them,” said Matt Lawyer, a parks board member.

Lawyer wanted to have the opportunity for the board to discuss the matter with Robert Johnson, Keizer’s parks supervisor, who was absent the night of the meeting.

Dylan Juran, another member of the board, wanted to know if the repaving would include a gravel path leading into the park to the fields. Holland said the project would stop at the entrance to the park itself.

“[Repaving the interior pathway] would have to be ADA-compliant and may be a couple of hundred thousand dollars,” Holland said.

The board will revisit the matter at its October meeting.