Help Needed to Save Pease... AGAIN

Heads Up Texas Disc Golfers, your help is needed, and quickly!

The City recently announced that they will be closing Pease Park Disc Golf Course by the end of the year. This announcement comes months after telling the community that the course would remain open until there was another course opened (possibly at Roy Guerrero Park) so that the other area courses are not drastically overused, drastically exaggerating environmental impact at every other area course. This was a complete lie. There will be no course at Roy G for many months, if ever. City officials strung us along, just to shut us up and announce their real intentions while the citizens were not paying attention. They did this on a Friday afternoon at 4:45 pm right before the short Thanksgiving week. Here is a link to the KXAN story on Friday …

www.kxan.com/dpp/news/...ease-park-

The City also promised that they would work towards (or at least consider) reinstating some aspect of the course at Pease once the storm-water work is completed. Given that this information came from City officials, it is unclear what will be the final result, especially with their recent track record of inconsistent stories.

So, if you are interested in having future disc golf recreation in Austin, or are interested in simply having city officials which tell the truth and follow ethical protocol standards, PLEASE make yourselves heard. There is no chance that they will ever show the community respect if folks simply accept this as the way government works.

If you wish to contact the following people to express your opinion, here are the phone numbers of the elected representatives. You may e-mail them using this website

www.ci.austin.tx.us/co...pemail.htm

Mayor Lee Leffingwell - (512) 974-2250
Council Member Chris Riley - (512) 974-2260
Council Member Mike Martinez - (512) 974-2264
Council Member Randi Shade - (512) 974-2255
Council Member Laura Morrison - (512) 974-2258
Council Member Bill Spelman - (512) 974-2256
Council Member Sheryl Cole - (512) 974-2266
Sara Hensley, PARD Director – (512) 974-6716
Assistant City manager Bert Lumbreras – (512) 974-7717

To widen the scope of your responses, here are the email addresses of the Mayor and Council, many of their aides, the Parks Dept. Director and 2 of the Assistant Directors, and the Austin Parks Board. ALL of these people need to hear about this from you, and they need to hear about it often. The groups opposed to Pease are getting to these influential members often and vocally, the disc golf community now needs to do the same.

The city is, at best, breaking their word about keeping the course open until a new course is completely installed and operating. This was a publicly stated commitment.

Mayor & Council
Lee.Leffingwell@ci.austin.tx.us; Chris.Riley@ci.austin.tx.us; Mike.Martinez@ci.austin.tx.us; Randi.Shade@ci.austin.tx.us; Laura.Morrison@ci.austin.tx.us; Bill.Spelman@ci.austin.tx.us; Sheryl.Cole@ci.austin.tx.us

Mayor\Council Aides
Mark.Nathan@ci.austin.tx.us; Nancy.Williams@ci.austin.tx.us; Amy.Everhart@ci.austin.tx.us; Matt.Curtis@ci.austin.tx.us; Janet.Jackson@ci.austin.tx.us; Lewis.Leff@ci.austin.tx.us; Matt.Parkerson@ci.austin.tx.us; bobby.garza@ci.austin.tx.us; Andrew.Moore@ci.austin.tx.us; Laura.Williamson@ci.austin.tx.us; Elaine.Diaz@ci.austin.tx.us; Glen.Coleman@ci.austin.tx.us; Grace.Corpus@ci.austin.tx.us; Robert.Levinski@ci.austin.tx.us; Barbara.Rush@ci.austin.tx.us; Barksdale.English@ci.austin.tx.us; deena.estrada@ci.austin.tx.us; Beverly.Wilson@ci.austin.tx.us; Stephanie.McDonald@ci.austin.tx.us; Tara.Long@ci.austin.tx.us


PARD Director & Assistant Directors
Sara.Hensley@ci.austin.tx.us; Cora.Wright@ci.austin.tx.us; Kelly.Snook@ci.austin.tx.us


Austin Parks Board
lhg@grandecom.net; saramarler@sbcglobal.net; whabell@gmail.com; jfrancell@tnc.org; clee.parks@gmail.com; jerry.perales@gmail.com; janehrivera@austin.rr.com

Help us spread the word through email, facebook, myspace, texting, anything! This betrayal must not stand!



• The City told us Pease wouldn't completely close until a new course was ready, but at best, it is now breaking its promise. At worst, some will say they have lied the whole time.

• Pease is now being closed December 31st without a replacement course ready (Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Park is the one most often offered to sub for Pease).

• Roy G isn't a promise - there is NO GUARANTEE the course will be installed any time soon (if ever).

• We've seen past examples of the City over-exaggerating the park destruction & erosion issues of disc golf, which is NOT ACCURATE.




• Email or call your Mayor & City Council members and Parks & Rec representatives - info can be found here on this site and on the pdga Discussion Board. Email and call everyone, and often!

• Attend the meeting about the Roy G. Guerrero disc golf project on Monday evening, November 29th, 6:00 – 7:30 pm, Ruiz Branch Library, 1600 Grove Road.

• Even more importantly, attend the Austin Parks Board meeting Tuesday evening, November 30th, 6 pm at City Hall, 301 W. 2nd Street, Boards and Commissions Room (Rm. 1101) disc golf is on the agenda, come and speak in Pease’s defense and to push for the new course at Roy G.

• Keep letting the City know how important disc golf is to us and how we DEMAND the truth about all park projects!!!!

Thank you for your support! We all must stand up for our parks and the future of our sport.

The city is going to start doing Master Planning work for Pease Park this year, maybe even starting as early as June, but we don’t have any definite dates/locations yet. As soon as we do we will pass those along. We will need, NEED, big attendance and input at these city meetings to really push for disc golf going back into Pease once the creek work is done.

In the meantime though, one of the Pease improvement groups, Pease Park Conservancy, is having a “Meet & Greet” to talk about the master planning process. They want neighbors and park users to give their input on what they want to see in the Pease Master Plan. The group’s website is: www.peasepark.org/ and they have a facebook page too www.facebook.com/pages...6615556330


This is a great event for disc golfers to show up to and voice our desire as park users, neighbors, and city residents, for disc golf to be included in the park’s future.

Not in a confrontational way, but in a constructive, involved, “This is what we want; this is what we think is important; this is why” way.

We want and need to show that disc golf is still a desired and appropriate activity at Pease.

Thursday
May 19th
6 pm
Pease Park, at the picnic table area


We hope to see you there!
Waterloo Disc Golf Club

We just heard (via their twitter feed) that the Pease Park Plan Meet & Greet is Postponed until May 26th at 6pm because of the rain.

twitter.com/#!/PeasePark