Scott Thomas has spent his first year as the parks and recreation director for Covington laying a foundation for the future.
“The first year was great,” Thomas said. “It’s really a fun community to work in. I feel grateful about the great council and mayor that we have. They’re visionary and they are ready to take action to do things for the community. It’s a community that has a lot of opportunity.”
Prior to coming to Covington, Thomas spent 10 years working as a park planner for the city of Burien, where he helped build a parks department from scratch including developing a parks system. He has a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in public administration, both from the University of Washington.
After cutting much of its parks and recreation budget due to the failure of a metropolitan parks district ballot measure in November 2006, Thomas is helping Covington improve the current facilities and plans on growing the programing and adding parks.
“There’s a list of things that people want to do and it’s going to take some time to get some of those things done,” Thomas said.
He is now working on helping Covington build its parks system through work on the Covington Community Park at 180th Avenue Southeast and Southeast 240th Street and developing an action plan for long term parks and recreation planning.
“I really like the variety of work that’s here because the parks system needs to be developed more,” he said. “Our whole recreation system needs to be developed. There’s great opportunities for developing art and performing art.”
One thing he’s proud of is the work that has been done at the Covington Aquatic Center. The center went through a significant makeover last year that wrapped up at the end of 2008.
“The HVAC (heating ventilation and air conditioning) system at the aquatic center, that project getting completed was quite an accomplishment,” he said. “The aquatic staff really stretched themselves to upgrade the facility. If people haven’t been to the pool since December it’s worth another visit because it’s so much more comfortable now. It was a really good investment.”
His two main priorities going forward are the Covington Community Park. The City Council approved a master plan for the park in February, Thomas said, and now staff members are working with a consultant on design for the project.
“The first phase of that design is under way right now and it’s leading us toward construction in 2011,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be a lot more park than anything the city has at the moment. It’s probably going to be one of the two ore three most significant parks in are system.”
This particular park falls into the “community park” category, Thomas explained, “so it’s big and people from all over the community will use it.”
“It is going to be an anchor,” he said. “It’s going to be a place that has something for everyone in the community. It’s very exciting.”
The other major project on Thomas’ plate is the Parks, Recreation and Open Space Plan, also known as the PROS Plan.
“The PROS Plan is probably the biggest thing that is happening right now, even as important as the community park is, it’s one piece of the puzzle,” he said. “The PROS Plan is the map that lays out the priorities the community has and where we’re going to put our resources.
It will guide us in developing a recreation system that meets the needs of the community and lays out the costs and a timeline for getting the most important things done over the next 10 years.”
Thomas said when work on the PROS Plan, which began in May and will take a year to complete, is finished he will use it as a “to do list.”
In the coming months the city will be gathering input. First it will conduct a community wide survey of residents about parks and recreation in August to determine parks and recreation priorities.
“The answers to the survey will probably be the foundation to what do we over the next 10 years,” Thomas said. “What’s important to you? What are we doing well now? What do we need to improve on? Everything else falls from there about what we start and the kinds of things we can take on in the next few years.”
In the fall, September and November, there will be community forums where residents will be invited to offer more of their thoughts on parks and recreation. Thomas encourages anyone who is interested in the topic to attend these meetings and get involved early in the process.
Thomas said the PROS Plan will address among other things a question he gets asked often, “What are we going to do about Jenkins Creek Park?”
“It will give us some guidance about how much energy to put into that and how much to put into other parks and recreation programs,” he said. “It’s one of those hidden jewels and there’s so much opportunity there.”
And another critical aspect of getting the plan done is money.
“One of the key things … is how are we going to pay for all of this,” Thomas said. “The PROS Plan is the gateway to a couple of significant state granting programs. With the Community Park we’ll be counting on state grants to pay for the sports field and we can’t get those grants if we don’t write the PROS Plan. It’s an important part of our funding package as well as our planning package.”
