FREMONT: The City of Fremont is embarking on a journey to create a new comprehensive Parks and Recreation Master Plan to provide guidance on how to meet the demands for future recreational, programming, environmental, and maintenance needs, as well as to establish priorities for facility improvements, future park development, and land acquisitions. Fremont residents are invited to join in the process, which will be led by the Community Services Department, as the City seeks feedback from all ages in our community about Fremont parks and how residents would like to recreate in the future.
“Diverse and vibrant parks, trails, special events, and recreation offerings are essential parts of our thriving community to provide healthier lifestyles, greater equity of access, and to stimulate economic development,” said Mayor Lily Mei. “Fremont has become an increasingly multicultural and innovative community in the last 25 years and this Master Plan will better position our city to be the community of choice for individuals and businesses in the years to come.”
The City has hired PROS Consulting, INC. a leader in parks and recreation consulting nationwide and their Principal, Neelay Bhatt will be leading this project along with a team from San Francisco-based WRT and ETC Institute from Kansas City. Bhatt states, “There is hardly a community of this size nationwide that can claim to have such a rich offering of parks, trails and open spaces including, the crown jewel, Central Park. Our goal is to engage the community in the most inclusive and innovative manner possible and to let the community’s values and unmet needs drive the priorities for Fremont’s future.”
The City will conduct three virtual public input meetings to gather feedback from residents. These meetings will be open to the public and seek to engage the Fremont community while obtaining their input through live polling, Q&A, and public comments. To maximize engagement from participants, the following meeting schedule is in place with varying days and times:
Tuesday, July 28 from 6 -7 p.m.
Saturday, August 8 from 10 – 11 a.m.
Wednesday, August 12 from 10 – 11 a.m.
“During the meetings, we will introduce the Master Plan and engage the community through creative online mediums designed to boost public input. We look forward to the Fremont community participating to the fullest extent possible to help guide our efforts to improve Fremont’s vast park system and plan for the future of our parks and recreation services, including prioritizing projects, maintenance, policy, and funding,” said Community Services Director Suzanne Wolf.
The consulting team has also developed an ADA-accessible, multilingual crowdsourcing website to guide this project at www.InventFremontParks.com. “This site will serve as the one-stop shop to provide all plan updates, list meeting dates, host online surveys and provide the community opportunities to continue sharing their feedback throughout the planning process. Additionally, those who are unable to attend the virtual public meetings can also view the recordings of the meetings and share their feedback later,” said Bhatt.
Meetings with key City leaders and user groups have already taken place with the focus now on the virtual public meetings, which will be followed by a statistically-valid survey mailed to a random sample of Fremont residents.
Registration for the Virtual Public Meetings is available at www.InventFremontParks.com.
