In the Fall 2021 copy of the Bartlesville Magazine, there is an article about the history and beauty of Bartlesville Parks written by Laura Summers of the Examiner-Enterprise. The article mentions that Bartlesville plans to develop a park east of Washington Park Mall to be called Southeast Park. I found information about it on the City of Bartlesville Parks & Recreation website. It sounds like it’ll be a great park to have in Bartlesville! I noticed that they have been cutting trees down on that land as well as a for sale sign.
This property, 42 acres located on Price Road east of Washington Park Mall, was purchased by the City in 1993 with plans of making it park property at some point in the future. Southeast Park was included in a 2008 master plan; however, funding for development of the park has to date not been identified and the project has not been developed further.
Funding for large projects such as this is typically provided through special elections such as general obligation bond and half-cent Capital Improvement Project sales tax elections. Funding for this park in particular has not been put before voters for several reasons, but most notably because the focus for many years has been on improving existing parks and/or development of areas that can be done with less money, therefore providing more “bang” for the taxpayers’ “buck,” if you will.
One example of this is the Lee Lake Complex, where many features found listed on the Southeast Park website page have been implemented, including the urban fishing lake and Cooper Dog Park. There are also wooded areas around the complex and the Pathfinder Parkway trail system, as well as a disc golf course that is under construction north of the lake. (Note the disc golf course is being funded by private donation).
Regarding the mowing and tree cutting, this is being done on private property east of the City-owned property intended for Southeast Park, so it is completely unrelated to the park property or the City of Bartlesville. To date there are no permit applications on file with the City for this property and the City is unaware of any future plans for it.
While there is no connection between the coincidental clearing and mowing underway on private property east of the City-owned park property, the issue is likely to get even more confusing if (or, hopefully, when) grant funding to clear dangerous brush and tree overgrowth from the entire 70-acre area is approved through the Oklahoma Department of Forestry.
According to Fire Chief David Topping, the City of Bartlesville has been working with Washington County and Washington County Emergency Management on a project that would involve mitigating overall fire hazard on the entire tract of land (not just the City-owned portion) with use of selective tree thinning and brush clearing. An application has been submitted to the Oklahoma Department of Forestry for funding for the project.
“We would provide man-power for our portion of the funding,” Topping said in reference to the City’s involvement.
He said the mitigation would be conducted strategically and would not require action from nearby property owners.
“We’re not going to just go in and level everything or anything like that,” he said. “We would go through and identify and flag hard woods and thin the areas where there are too many in close proximity and clear out accumulation of brush where clear fire hazards exist.”
What’s going in there?
Is something going in on the northeast corner of Washington Boulevard and Price Road?
According to Chief Building Official Trey Yankovich, HTeaO has filed a permit application for construction of a store at that location. Yankovich said Tuesday the development is still in the plan review stage. The franchise has several locations in Texas, Kansas and Oklahoma, including a location in Tulsa.