Hi, all
Megan Dudo here, candidate for the
Williamson-Travis Counties Municipal
Utility District 1,
or MUD for short.
This is the second video I'm putting out
there where I'll be talking more about
the various
issues I discussed in my campaign
platform document
and that beast of a document can be
viewed on my Facebook page, which I've
linked to
this video description, and it is a
public page so
you should be able to view it even
without a Facebook account,
but if you're having difficulty you can
always reach out to me
at votedudo at gmail dot com
So, in the first video I talked about
deed restrictions in our community and
today I would like to discuss one of my
absolute favorite subjects in the world
PARKS!
One of the responsibilities of our MUD
is to manage our lovely park system,
and within our District we have six
parks as well as eight stormwater
detention facilities that have been
improved
to varying degrees to serve as
additional park space,
for a grand total of 27
acres of parkland. So as I did in my
first video I'd like to start out with
my sort of minute-long elevator pitch on
parks um in case you don't have time for
the full discussion
because if you thought I could talk a
long time about deed restrictions
you've never heard me talk about parks.
So as we move into our future
one of our most important assets as a
residential community
is our park system. I will elaborate in
the next part of this video on the many
reasons I believe
this to be true, but in summary
I believe our parks represent
significant opportunities
to build our community's wealth, enhance
quality of life for all residents,
contribute to the building of community,
and protect and showcase our natural
environment.
In addition, research conducted by the
National Recreation and Parks
Association
indicates that under the circumstances
created by the COVID-19 pandemic
public park spaces remain as important
as ever
Parks offer places to rejuvenate both
our physical
and mental health and help to reconnect
us to our community at a time when we
are feeling stressed and isolated.
Parks belong to all of us. They are a
representation of who we are as a
community,
and they reflect our collective identity
and values.
In addition, as we continue to seek ways
to move forward in this post-pandemic
world
parks can also offer offer opportunities
for our local small business owners and
organizations to continue to thrive,
and I'll talk more about that later in
the video.
So in this video I'd like to cover the
following:
First, just give you a more in-depth look
at the value
of, the value our park system brings to
our community.
Next I want to provide an explanation of
the park
planning process the District is gearing
up for
and why I feel that process is important.
And then third I just want to talk about
why
I think it's important to continue to
plan for our parks
even amidst a global pandemic
So to start I'd like to expand on why
parks are so valuable to our community
even if you yourself aren't a huge park
user
and I'll start with the most practical
and universal of reasons.
It is well documented that properly
maintained parks
increase the property values of
surrounding homes
and that having a park system that
provides certain quality amenities
increases the desirability of a
neighborhood, which of course translates
to higher values.
And not only does this impact you as a
property owner,
helping you build equity in your home,
but it also helps to create wealth in
our community as a whole
because increases in property values
lead to increased property tax revenue
which in turn allows the District to
invest more in the maintenance of and
appropriate improvements to our
community.
nice things beget get nice things, so
even if you never step foot in one of
our lovely parks,
those parks are working for you.
Number two: community building.  When you think of our parks you may think of
specific amenities
or functions, like a playground for kids,
or a basketball court,
or maybe just a quiet place to walk, but
one of the most important things a park
space can do for a community is to
provide a gathering place for residents.
And on its face this one sounds kind of
hippie dippie, but it's actually quite a
rich topic.
I could devote an entire video
discussion to this topic alone
but instead i'll just give you a few
bits of supporting evidence to explain
why I think this function is so critical
for our community. In
the fine year of 1989,
a sociologist named Ray Oldenburg coined
the term
"third place," which was a reference to the
primary places people spend time.
People's first places are their homes,
their second places
are their places of work, and their third
places are those spaces
where people can spend time with others
on a spontaneous,
voluntary, and informal basis
Some people have referred to these third
places as the living rooms of our
neighborhoods.
Now, third places do not have to be
publicly owned. In fact
some of the most important third places
throughout human civilization have been
in privately owned, quasi-public spaces
like
pubs, barber shops, and cafes, so
think of the show Cheers or of the
coffee shop in the show Friends, but
public parks and other community facilities can
also serve as important third places,
particularly in the suburbs where we
have much more of a disconnect
between our commercial areas and our
residential areas.
So over here on London Lane we can't
just stroll down to the corner pub.
So third places are crucial environments
for building community for a variety of
reasons:
They provide a neutral third ground
where
a neutral ground where people who may
otherwise not have
opportunities to interact can come
together and have
casual interactions and conversations
and ultimately build friendships,
and, as such, third places help foster
empathy between people,
they help combat isolation and
loneliness, and they nurture trust and
inclusion.
Third places also have a robust capacity
to build and enhance civic engagement.
For example, taverns are well known to
have played an important role
in the American Revolution, hosting the
Sons of Liberty as they plotted
and planned.  Raise a glass to freedom!
The book Happy City: Transforming our Lives Through Urban Design, which I am
still in the process of reading,
starts with a discussion about what the
research says about human happiness,
and one of the most crucial predictors
of happiness is whether or not a person
has meaningful human relationships in
their life.
The author goes on to discuss how
crucial relationships are to civic
engagement
and I just want to read an abbreviated
excerpt from that book that I think
is so interesting. The author says,
"People who live in mono-functional car
dependent neighborhoods outside of urban
centers are much less likely to know
their neighbors.
They are less likely to get involved
with social groups and even less likely
to participate in politics.
This matters not only because political
engagement is a civic duty,
and not just because it is one more
contributor to well-being.
It matters because cities need us to
reach out to one another
like never before." So
over the last several years since I've
been involved in the Anderson Mill West
Neighborhood Association
and then with Friends of Anderson Mill West,
one of the things we focused on
was community events, which all took
place in
our public parks, and on the surface
it may be easy to dismiss those
activities as superfluous,
maybe as fun but ultimately
inconsequential,
but I would argue that they were in fact
fundamental to strengthening our
community.
Activities that bring our neighbors
together are the foundation for civic
engagement.
And in 2019 when I asked residents a
simple,
open-ended question about their hopes
and dreams for our community,
one of the most common responses related
to people's desire
to get to know their neighbors better,
and to have increased opportunities to
build relationships with their neighbors.
So, at a time when our country is so
divided,
fostering togetherness is not only the
bomb that heals,
it is also critical to empowering people
to build a stronger and more
democratic society.
the next reason to love parks is that
they support our physical and mental
health.
Parks offer free opportunities for
people to meet their daily physical
activity needs by providing destinations
for play,
for walking and biking, and also places
for competitive sports.
And with respect to this, I think it's
important to point out the important
roles sports play
in building human relationships. This is
well documented among sociologists
and the research has found that the
places where humans gather to play
sports
take on a certain sacredness within a
community
and like the third places we discussed
earlier
sports have been found to bolster
relationships between people
who may otherwise be at odds with one
another.
They play a crucial role in breaking
down the barriers that might otherwise
divide us:
socioeconomic status, religion, politics,
none of that matters
when you're on the soccer pitch. Sports
quite literally
level the playing field, and
not only that but sociologists have also
found that people who participate in
organized sports are also
much more likely to participate in other
civic projects.
So if you want to read more about this
you can check out the book Palaces for
the People:
How Social Infrastructure Can Help Fight
Inequality,
Polarization, and the Decline of Civic
Life. And then in addition to
physical health, and for the reasons
we've already discussed,
parks have an important role to play in
supporting our mental health.
Green spaces also offer us the kind of
mental respite we can only achieve
by spending time outside in the fresh
air,
amidst the trees, and under the sky.
And this brings us right to our next
reason to love parks:
They are good for the natural
environment, and what's good for the
natural environment
is good for us. Green spaces help cool
our environment leading to energy cost
savings,
they help reduce flooding by allowing
for storm water to infiltrate
back into the ground. Vegetation helps
clean our air
and our water, and park spaces provide
habitat for plants, animals, and insects,
increasing biodiversity and creating
opportunities for critters to pass
safely through urban areas.
Parks big and small give us immediate
access to our natural world.
And then lastly for today, parks offer
something called
"direct use savings," which refers to the
money park users save
by being able to use the amenities and
facilities available at a public park
without having to pay a user fee for
similar private facilities.
So an obvious example of this for
parents
is the fact that taking our kids to the
playground
is free whereas an indoor gym
or bounce house or similar is
very much not free. And so
once again public parks are a great
leveler, accessible to all
and in this time of COVID-19
when being outdoors is considered much
safer than being indoors,
parks also provide an opportunity to
engage in activities
that might not otherwise be available to
us
right now or that might feel unsafe
at this time
Okay, so what's the deal with this park
plan you may have heard about?
When I started volunteering with the
Anderson Mill West Neighborhood
Association in early
2017, one of the first
projects I championed was a five-year
park plan,
and over the last couple years I have
worked with
the Parks Committee--which includes
incumbent
for the MUD board Jana Norton Ramirez.
SHOUT OUT!--
to prepare and revise a Request for
Proposals
so the District can solicit the help of
a consultant
to prepare the park plan, and
last fall the District board budgeted
$20,000 to fund that
planning process, and this summer
District staff distributed the Request
for Proposals,
and in the coming month the District
will finally be in a position
to select a consultant and start
the planning process. So
why do I believe that District should
prepare
a park plan and what will we all get for
our $20,000
investment? So, research has shown
that in order for parks to live up to
their potential,
in other words, to provide all the
benefits we talked about earlier in this
video,
they need to at minimum be well
maintained
and have a variety of amenities to meet
the needs of different ages,
capabilities, and interests. So a green
space with nothing nothing in it is not
the same as a well-designed and
maintained park.
So our District has put a lot of love
into our parks over the years,
so we are in no way suffering when it
comes to our park system; However
making the most of our parks and public
spaces is an
ongoing practice, and maximizing the
value of our parks means
allowing these spaces and our use of
them to evolve over time.
So when i look at our parks
I still see immense opportunity and I
see a chance for our community to
continue to build
something beautiful together. Up until
now
our community has had few opportunities
to directly weigh in
on park improvements and I really want
that to change
because I want residents to take
ownership of these spaces.
From the beginning I have fought for a
process
that actively involves the community
and the Request for Proposals that I
helped draft
reflects that focus, and I also think
that a planning process like this will
provide a good entryway into other forms
of community engagement,
because of all the things we can plan
for in a community,
one of the most joyful things to plan
for is parks.
Kids can get involved, as well as adults
of all ages.
It is a creative process, an artistic
process, and a process that allows us to
focus on the very
best of us.
So in addition to community engagement,
the next reason to plan
is government transparency. One of the
important outcomes of planning processes
is that they help maximize transparency
and decision making
because the purpose of a plan is to
provide a foundation and guide
for policy and budgetary decisions.
And for a plan to serve its true purpose
it needs to be accessible
by not only elected officials, community
staff, and other
community leaders, but also by the public.
And in that respect the plan provides
guidance to the public about what to
expect from our leadership.
Next, the park planning process will help
our community identify and prioritize
investments
to maximize the benefits of our park
system in line with our community values.
One misconception about this park plan
is that its purpose is to uh to
justify the construction
of expensive capital improvements, but
the point here is that improvements and
amenities need not be expensive or
elaborate in order to be of value to the
community.
On the contrary, some of the most special
and elegant improvements
cost hardly a thing.
The true goal of the planning process
should be to capture
people's creativity and to identify the
best ways to maximize our park system's
potential in a combination of ways.
In addition to improvements this may
also involve things like
strategies to better market and program
the spaces we have.
It may include the targeted removal of
improvements that are underused so we're
not wasting money maintaining things the
community no longer values.
And, further, plans for improvements don't
need to be implemented in one fell swoop.
Improvements can be made incrementally
over time,
allowing for appropriate feedback loops
to ensure the investment is a good one
and to help us adjust course where
needed.
And then related to this is the issue of
an aquatic
amenity of some kind like a pool um this
community has
for some time expressed hope that we
could one day have some sort of
aquatic amenity, and years ago there was
a petition to build a pool at Anderson Mill West Park.
The District board had a study prepared
that looked into that potential and
ultimately decided against pursuing it
for a number of reasons
but the desire to have some sort of
related amenity never completely died
away
because we live in Texas and it's hot
but there are options other than a
swimming pool that have the potential to
work within the space
and financial constraints we have, and
the value of a park planning process
is that if that's something that's
really important to the community
this is an opportunity to think about
that within the context of our other
community goals
and explore creative ways to responsibly
pursue
something like that. And then
lastly another truly important reason to
plan ahead
is to encourage responsible spending
with respect to our parks, so even though
the District will be spending $20,000
up front
to get the plan in place I believe the
return on that investment
is going to be much more than that in
the long term,
and this would be generally achieved in
the following ways:
The plan will allow the community to
identify what really matters
in terms of future park improvements and
to prioritize those things
so we're aligning our spending with our
community's values and priorities
and reducing wasteful spending.
Next, the plan will include a five-year
implementation timeline
which will allow for more responsible,
transparent,
and longer-term budgeting, and it can
also more easily facilitate
smaller incremental investments towards
longer term goals
so the community has opportunities to
test the success and value of projects
over time.
And then also the process allows for
a greater exploration of different and
creative ways to fund
projects and initiatives including
through grants, community volunteerism,
and potentially public-private
partnerships. And it's also worth
mentioning that in some cases having a
well-written plan in place
can also unlock certain funding sources,
such as grant programs that favor
projects
identified through community plans, so in
many cases having a plan
signals to funders that a project is
well thought out
and will be a good investment. So
the bottom line is if you believe that
our parks are an important piece
of the fabric of our community we owe it
to ourselves
to apply some focused thought on how to
maximize their value
to all of us.
Given how much the global COVID-19
pandemic has altered our lives
it's reasonable to ask how and why we
should still be undertaking a park
planning process
at this time. All of my experience and
observations, as well as everything I've
read
on this subject suggests that not only
is it possible to plan for our parks
during this time,
but it is potentially even more critical
than it was before COVID-19,
because not only have our outdoor
amenities become even more important to
our well-being and health
during this time, but the fact that we
need to adapt our use of these spaces
suggests that now is the time
to problem solve so that we can maximize
our parks
for the benefit of all. Instead of making
new improvements to our parks at this
time, this is actually the perfect moment
to reflect on business as usual.
As I see it the question in front of us
is how do we shape our parks in light of
this new world?
We have data about what types of park
uses are safe.
You can go to the National Recreation
and Parks Association's website and see
this information,
along with guides on how to conduct
phased re-openings of park facilities.
So based on this I'll provide an example
of what this might look like.
Okay, so we know that even when COVID-19
has been at its worst
activities like walking and biking
remain safe and are
encouraged, and this is already a popular
use of our park spaces--
it was before COVID-- and access to safe,
comfortable, and beautiful places to walk
will be that much more important into
the future.
COVID or not, should the community
confirm that this is a valuable goal,
we have so many opportunities to improve
our spaces
just in this one regard
So come if you will down a path
of walking and biking opportunity:
We could focus on providing more shade
to places like Anderson Mill West Pond,
which makes a lovely place to walk but
is frankly
unbearable under a summer Texas sun; we
could add lighting to places that are
too
dark or that feel unsafe when the sun
starts to go down,
like the backside of Anderson Mill West
Park; we could continue to beautify
walking routes with native plantings,
not only creating a lovelier place to
walk, but adding habitat for bees and
butterflies;
We could explore whether the community
has interest in paving
certain unpaved trail segments for the
purposes of making them more accessible
to all
users, because a smooth paved surface can
be easier to walk on
for folks who aren't as sure-footed,
folks in wheelchairs,
kids on scooters or small wheeled bikes,
and caretakers pushing strollers;
We could make small adjustments to
existing routes to make them extra fun
for kids, like racetrack markings,
signage, and stop and go lights; we could
add more dog waste stations;
we could look into adding water bottle
fill up stations; we could publish
family scavenger hunts that encourage
residents to travel the walking routes
in each of our parks;
we could make certain routes extra
special by adding fairy lights, miniature
gardens, public art, or other ornamental
treasures.
I've always thought that it would be
magical to put fairy lights up
under the tree canopy that overhangs the
walking path in Anderson Mill West Park.
So, you see, just by thinking about this
one
single use of our parks we can come up
with a gazillion opportunities to make
our community
even more lovable and joyful, and some of
these things also provide awesome
opportunities for residents to work
together on something beautiful.
And you will note that many of these
things
can also be accomplished for
a very small price tag or phased in
slowly
over time.
So the other thing I want to say
about this is that
in post-pandemic times
our parks can provide special and unique
opportunities
for activities that traditionally occur
indoors to be moved
outdoors, and we are fortunate to live in
a state where we can be
outside most of the year, so let's work
with our communities small business
owners,
organizational leaders, and schools to
see how our park spaces
can help them move through this
challenging time.
And so I'll give you a
a very specific example of what I mean
by this. One of our neighbors
owns a martial arts studio, and COVID-19
has been really hard on his business,
and one of the ways he's tried to
continue to hold classes for his
students
is to conduct them outside in public
parks, along with reduced class sizes and
social distancing, and he told me that
Anderson Mill West's park pavilion would
be a
perfect place to hold his classes but
our parks have all been closed, so he's
had to use City of Austin parks instead,
but he's OUR resident.
In the early 20th century, open-air
classes were used as a way to combat the
spread of tuberculosis,
and one of the things we know about
COVID-19 is that the rate of transmission
drops when we're outside, so what role
can our parks play in providing a safer
environment
for some of the activities we would
otherwise be stuck conducting
indoors? Who can we partner with to make
this happen?
So, this is our chance to
problem solve, to make the best of a
crummy situation.
Human ingenuity; it's what we do.
Our reality is what it is. We can't
fix the pandemic, but we can continue to
adapt
and thrive in spite of it, and this
planning process is just
one more way we can work together and
remember that we're still
part of a community. We're still in this
together, and we can still
look to the future.
Okay, so, um, I'm gonna leave it
there for now, but, as always, please reach
out with questions,
comments, and thoughts. I love to talk
about parks. I could talk about parks
all day, so let me know.
Until next time. Bye!
 
