Remarks by Tim Murry
337 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 13 of 14
- Play at 3:37:24
“I guess I'm trying to define what you mean. what, transportation and five-minute access? Is it walk-in? Is it by scooter? Is it by golf cart?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:39:13
“Yep. Okay, like I say, I'm still trying to define what you mean by five minutes. Like I say, I can get in my car and I can drive to a park. It's not about cars.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:39:26
“Well, I can get on my scooter and drive to a park in five minutes. Yeah, that's fine. However, if I start walking, it may take me longer to get there.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:39:37
“Well, I guess I can say that's what I'm trying to define exactly. What do you mean by five-minute access? By scooter, by walking or whatever?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:39:48
“Because if you're telling me I need to have a park five minutes from my house by scooter, okay, we got to park here. But if it's by walking, to park it way over here when I live here, see? Yeah. Okay, let's redefine all that. I think we're kind of getting a little tough there when we start saying within five minutes, and we give all the oxygen to get there. ABA, heard the ABA. I think they said, I think ABA said we had about 530 acres of park when I looked at their report. And I think our statistics say 443 acres. Okay. Well, I guess my question is the ABA, did they, well, I went to look it…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:40:40
“Okay. That's me. Well, I was just curious if ABA, where it came from, how we just pulled 60% and started spending 60% and everything. So that's just a random number you pull.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:40:57
“Yeah. Well, well, and like I say, here we are, you know, as we stated in other talk earlier this afternoon, we just randomly pulled numbers out here and those are without really analyzing everything and going to spend money.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:41:38
“OK, an ABA policy. I guess they define us as being a little deficiency in parks, right?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:41:47
“Okay, yeah. So would you say we should first, the council should first determine what the actually 443 acres, hold on. Brian, do me a favor. Can you give me an accurate number of how many acres we have? Because the city website says 443.9 acres.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:42:37
“Well, I went to the website and it's saying 443.9.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:42:45
“I just want to make sure we're using the right figures. So my thing is, shouldn't we, of that 400-something acre, we actually... What actually consists already within that 443 acres before we go out here and just start jumping on everything else, right? Allocating other parks.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:43:07
“And, of course, ABA recommended we maximize the existing parks first, right?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:43:27
“So don't you think they should be in this new policy that we maximize existing parks before we start worrying about new parks?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:43:59
“Well, I think one of the things we need to be doing here is identifying what we have first, what we have out there, and so we can determine what we're missing out of the active parks or the natural parks that you have. looking at proposals that we're doing. Of course, ABA did their study. And of course, we can go back and look at all these studies, which one of the things they did was identify waterfront and arts and recreation center. I'm on the six most active, you know, when I go back and look at their study, right? So then that argument for improving and activating existing access rather…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:45:38
“So an ABA recommended parks in the wellness way, right? Right. um specific part they just identified that there weren't any so i'm looking at the access to parks well i guess when i went in there i looked at it and read the reward again i looked at it as saying they recommended that we do do some park park development in the wellness way area right um so Is it simply to buy more parks everywhere, or is ABA recommending that we strategically develop parks in the needed areas right now? Okay, like Wellness Way, where we have the most growth. Wellness Way, as you stated, doesn't have any parks…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:48:35
“Okay. So, and then one, another thing that you mentioned connectivity, you have always talked about connectivities and all this here to the trails and all. So when these, uh, Then with the project, any of the projects that we're looking at right now improve the bicycle connectivity and everything to the trail between downtown, the waterfront trails and all that. And of course, the other thing I have, I'm concerned with you seeing all these parks within 10 minutes in these quadrants. Where are we going to get the land? Another concern, where's all the land coming from?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:50:41
“There's ABA recommend activation of clean waterfront and mixed use opportunity, right?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:50:53
“Yeah. And meters in the middle include the waterfront components, correct? All those components, right?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:51:07
“And they also look at using parks as economic development assets. So there's two, right? Yeah. I mean, I, when I go back and read, I pull all this stuff out of that recommendation and everything.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:51:49
“Well, I just want to make sure with this policy, because we actually have a policy in place. Now you're looking to rewrite the policy, and you're taking us in a whole different direction of what's already in place. I thought we were meeting most of the requirement for our parks and recreation, and according to our understanding, how many square miles we have in the city right now? About 20-point-something square miles? And I think we got like... And we got like one square mile for the number of parks we got. We got one park for each square mile we have.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:53:02
“Well, you're right. And with this bringing me to that area, we're making the wisest choice here and obligating funds to parks that we basically, according to what I'm reading in your proposal, is to say we're going to spend $7 million within the next six months, obligate $7 million in the next six months. But we don't know what parks or what condition, what return or anything. No analysis has been done on any of these parks.”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:53:43
“Well, don't you think we need to maybe know what operating costs or whatever we're committing to a recreation impact fee before we just do anything and say, hey, we're going to automatically commit 60% of this fund?”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:54:27
“Well, see, I guess I'm concerned with the fact that, you know, once we go out here and we start buying all these parks, we start doing all this land purchase and new parks and everything, we're adding reoccurring costs and all, but maintaining these parks and all these things, see, and all. And yet still, we're still sitting here talking about reducing millage and reducing revenue intake and everything, but we want to sit here and add all these parks. And you're committing right now. like another $7 million to new parks, which means more costs, more current. So how it's going to be funded is…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:55:34
“Right. So, well, that's the last thing. Basically, I feel it all. I don't think we need a policy change. I think we just need to let staff go ahead and do what they normally do and recommend everything, and then they come back to us to determine which one received funding, and maybe they give us recommendation on the funding part. But first of all, before we change the policy, it's my opinion that we need to Maybe you give staff authority to go out, find these parts, do the study, do the analysis and everything with no 6 months commitment. But I think that's putting the money. We, like you…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026
- Play at 3:57:07
“But I'm just concerned with we're sitting here and committing, changing our whole policy, parks and recreation policy, when we have one that's in place that's been working for us. I think we have a total of 22, 23 parks all over the city in the public place. I have no problem with saying, hey, can we partner with some of these other subdivisions to utilize some of the private parks and give access to some of those people? I think it'd be tough, especially when you have gated communities and everything, to try to utilize some of them. I think, well, in this way, yes, we need to focus on…”
City Council · Sep 8, 2026