Disc golf enthusiasts and residents near Warner Park came out in force to speak their mind on the Warner Memorial Park Master Plan at Tuesday’s Manhattan City Commission work session.
Warner Memorial Park is an 89-acre park that was acquired by the city in 1957 through donations by Kern Warner as well as purchases made possible by a community fundraising effort. At the time, the parkland was outside the city’s limits and had to be reached via county roads. The original intent was for what was eventually named Warner Memorial Park was to maintain it as natural as possible, though city staff noted that they could find no documents regarding any agreements or legal restrictions that would mandate that use.
City staff presented a draft of the master plan — known as the Coralberry concept — to commissioners at the meeting to get more direction on which specific components to include in the plan. Those components include proposals for additional trails, a bridge over the ravine in the park, removal of invasive plant species such as eastern red cedar and honeysuckle, an off-leash dog park, a nature play-area, as well as re-opening the roadway into the park and expanding the 9-hole disc golf course in the park to an 18-hole course. Also an important provision was the preservation of Old Military Trail.
The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board discussed the plan previously and were opposed to the dog park, the nature play-area, re-opening the road as well as expanding the disc golf course.
Much of the night’s discussion centered around the disc golf course expansion, with a full crowd in attendance often clapping at the conclusion of public comments delivered by a resident on their side of the debate. Many of those who spoke against the course expansion were residents who lived near the park, and many who spoke in favor were associated with the Little Apple Disc Golf Club.
Resident Adam Johnson with the LADGC spoke in favor of the expansion of the course, which sees an average of 37 users per day. He said that the course would go in areas that are largely unused and populated with dead brush and invasive trees, creating a 20 foot tunnel for the fairway. He also said that the course is already the number 13 9-hole course in the country and the number 10 course in the state, and that the expansion designed by renowned disc golf course designer John Houck could make bring it to bigger heights.
“That’s something that we view as a really big success, that this is a really popular area for disc golfers,” said Johnson. “We think expanding it and using the Coralberry concept could help propel that course to being the best course in Kansas.”
Caleb Hartig, also from the LADGC, said in his own public comment period that the expanded course would use less prairie than the current 9-hole set up. James McVey with the club spoke as well, arguing that the expansion could help bring more tourists — and tax revenue as a result — in part because Warner would be the third 18-hole course in the immediate Manhattan area (one is at Fairmont Park and the other at Tuttle Creek State Park) and would allow the club to host tournaments. He also said that the course could help discourage people from visiting the park for “negative” purposes.
“Positive use displaces negative use. This course is going to be specifically built into places with thick trees that makes more areas of the park useful, it fulfills the mission of the Parks and Rec department to create parks which people actually use,” said McVey. “This is going to be a place that people actually come to get some use out of this park, this is city money well-spent.”
Rick Petrie, one of the original designers of the current 9-hole course, said that the club raised money to pay for half of the current course and that they’d be willing to do so again for an expansion.
Resident David Poole was one of the residents who opposed the expansion. He read the commissioners a news article from Manhattan Beach, California about a lawsuit related to a disc golf accident that blinded a woman which the city had settled for $3 million.
“If you have a multi-user park, then people will get hit by these, people will get hurt,” said Poole. “And I think people — when they become territorial — and start saying ‘you’re in my way, I want to play my game and play through,’ I think it’s quite obvious from what I read to you that that can happen and it can have serious consequences.”
Debbi DeVenuto, the great-granddaughter of Kern Warner, was at the work session. She read the commissioners a letter from the 1957 park board that laid out an initial plan for the park to remain natural and said that she doesn’t think Warner Park is the place for disc golf.
“I’m telling you I don’t want to hike where discs are going to be flying around, I don’t want to risk that potential,” DeVenuto said. “I think the park needs to be kept as natural as possible and it needs to go back to being a community park.”
Commissioner Jerred McKee said that he doesn’t think the course expansion would work if the club doesn’t help with funding. He also said that he wants to see alternative parks the 18-hole course could be built at to make a more informed decision about which park is the best place for the course. McKee encouraged city staff to reach out to Houck to get feedback on that. Mayor Pro Tempore Usha Reddi shared similar sentiments regarding seeing alternatives.
Commissioner Wynn Butler said he thinks the city should follow the Park Advisory Board’s recommendation and not include the expansion in the plan.
“I think the conclusion the [Parks and Recreation Advisory Board] reached basically says there’s not going to be more than 9 disc golf holes in Warner Park and that’s the ideal state because that’s what they decided to do,” said Butler. “It’s also more cost effective.”
DeVenuto also advocated for re-opening the road into the park, opposed by the PRAB. She said she thinks it would help open the park back up to the community and that she personally knows people who no longer utilize the space due to poor accessibility.
I understand what happened back in the 80s, I was in high school in the 80s, I know kids went out there drinking and that was a problem out there and I understand that,” DeVenuto said. “But the park was not surrounded by houses at that time and there wasn’t a law enforcement center a quarter of a mile away.”
Commissioner McKee shared similar views, saying he thinks the main issue with the park is accessibility yet that topic has been given a lower priority compared to the disc golf debate. He also said he’d vote no on the plan if it did not include re-opening the road in the park.
“One of the inherent problems is the closing of that road 30 years ago turned this into a neighborhood park, not a community park,” McKee said. “And that is inherently unfair to the rest of the community.”
Butler also said he thinks the PRAB should revisit their thoughts on opening the road into Warner Park. Commissioners were also not enthusiastic about an off-leash dog park, agreeing with the PRAB.
Assistant Parks and Recreation Director Wyatt Thompson also said that they found old articles mentioning potential Native American burial sites on the land, but the city has no official records on it. Commissioner McKee said that would change the whole discussion regarding development. Mayor Mike Dodson said what could be done given there are no records of the burials. Thompson said the state encouraged them to perform an investigation of the site by the state before developing the park any further.
“Which is not like we’re going to go dig a bunch of holes, [we’re going to] basically walk around the site and see if there’s anything that looks like it might have been a burial mound,” Thompson said. “There’s nothing reported on the maps — that doesn’t mean that there’s not something there, it also might mean that there is nothing there.”
