Development
Sapulpa’s Park & Recreation system has undergone many positive changes and has been significantly upgraded through out the City since August of 1988. The Parks Department is in the process of gathering “grass roots” input from public meetings and committee discussions, establishing long range planning priorities, and investigating funding sources.
Today the department is responsible for 439 acres of recreation and park land under various stages of development within the Sapulpa Parks system. Since 1991, the department has secured 72 grants totaling $2, 025, 332.63 in matching grants and gifts for the city from a myriad of State, Federal and agencies used to rehabilitate, improve, and develop the City parks & Recreation System.
New Facilities:
Bushyhead Park
Heritage Park
Sapulpa Rotary Centennial Water Park
Sahoma Lake R/V Campgrounds
Complete renovation of Sahoma Lake covered fishing dock
Complete renovation of Davis Park
Areas Currently Under Development
Country Club Lake
Overview Park at Lake Sahoma
Hollier Park
McGoy Park
Future
Girls Softball concession / restroom facility
Aaron’s Angels Park
East Kelly Lane Park
Frankoma Road Youth Sports Complex
Included in the City of Sapulpa parks and recreation system are; (2) community/recreation center buildings, (3) lakes, (1) lake concessions/restrooms building, (4) outdoor park restroom buildings, (1) lake bait shop facility, (8) covered picnic shelters, (3) outdoor lake restroom units, (12) baseball/softball fields, (8) soccer fields, (4) outdoor basketball courts, (1) offshore boat dock, (2) boat launch areas, (1) offshore covered & heated fishing dock, (4) offshore fishing docks, (5) multi-purpose recreation trails, (9) playground areas, (1) park maintenance building, and a large number of stand-along picnic tables and grills.
The Sapulpa Parks and Recreation System includes a wide variety of facilities and amenities including but not necessarily limited to; lakes, ponds and creeks with boating, fishing, and hunting areas, off-shore piers (fishing & boating), boat ramps, bait and concessions facility, an aquatic splashpad water playground, playground areas, picnic shelters, picnic tables, grills, recreation center, senior citizens community center, outdoor courts, athletic fields (softball, baseball, soccer, and football), sports lighting systems, outdoor restroom buildings and facilities, ADA accessible sidewalks, trails, parking areas, campgrounds (tent and recreational vehicles), arboretum, trees, landscaped areas, wetlands, disc golf course, etc.).
Adopt-a-Park Program
Ongoing opportunities are made available for individual citizens, public and private groups and organizations to help make a difference in their Sapulpa community! We’re sweeping into action today by inviting all Sapulpans young and old to join the Sapulpa Parks Adopt-a-ParkTeam!
The Park Department organized and implemented the Adopt-A-Park Program in 1994 whereby individuals, civic clubs, and other organizations are afforded opportunity to provide volunteer service for their community by adopting a certain park area(s). Examples of such include; the Sapulpa Rotary Club and the Liberty Park Splash Pad, a $161,000 water playground project which they are currently spearheading to construct and open by May 1, 2005. The local Rotarians Club have pledged funds for the project and secured another $75,000 from the Bartlett Foundation and Collins Foundation for the new aquatics facility, which is scheduled to open in May 2005.
The Kelly Lane Park Admiration Society have, in the past, helped with maintaining color plantings in the park, and the Sapulpa Lions Club, in the past, have provided cash donations for plantings at Liberty Park.
Staff and Park Board are currently organizing a “Friends of the Lakes Club”, which once formed will assist the Parks Department with lake activities, major cleanup efforts after flood events, beautification and construction efforts. Certain members of the Park Board have been instrumental in many of our lake projects and efforts. Staff would not have been able to accomplish what we have without the innumerable amount of volunteer hours on behalf the City of Sapulpa to make the City’s parks and lakes what they are today.
The Sapulpa Park Department extends special invitations to civic clubs, schools, groups, businesses, organizations, and individual citizens to participate in a worthwhile and beneficial community service program. Numerous volunteer opportunities are made available for citizens to get involved in helping with a variety of fun and community-changing projects. By volunteering, citizens make a “Major” contribution toward the beautification of our City’s scenic and natural resources. Good stewardship is vitally important for our environment, for the future of our parks and recreation facilities, fishing, camping and other nature activities within our community.
Good “stewardship” is really the key and is vitally important to our Park Department Staff, the community as a whole, for our environment, for the well being of our citizens, and putting the future of our parks and recreation system on a solid and secure foundation. By volunteering, people make a “Major” contribution toward the beautification of our community’s scenic and natural resources while obtaining personal results such as self-fulfillment, happiness, contentment, and a true sense of“community” and “belonging”. We are constantly encouraging citizens to take a vital “ownership”mentality concerning their Sapulpa’s Parks and Recreation Department, system, facilities and programs.
The Parks Department continues efforts to expand volunteer initiatives in order to effectively enhance the Department’s programs and services provided to the community, while also affording citizens and groups the opportunities of contributing directly to society and namely, their own community. The Park Department works very hard to encourage and continually develop good working relationships with community and neighborhood groups. Numerous volunteer opportunities were made available to interested citizens and groups to get involved in helping with a variety of fun and “community-changing” projects. The City’s new “Overlook Park” Expansion Project is planned for the Winter 2004 and will include a wide variety of donated labor and equipment from local landscaping firm(s).
CITY-WIDE REFORESTATION PROGRAM
The Department planned and implemented an urban reforestation project beginning in 1993 as a means of continually replenishing and stabilizing the City’s tree canopy, and for ensuring a growing, healthy future for the City canopy in its public park sites. During the planning period, the Department estimates that it planted over 600 trees.
From 1993-1996, the City Parks Department acquired $22,000 in forestry grants from the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture’s Forestry Division (ODA/FD), planting over 250 trees in Davis Park, Route 66 right-of-way areas, Wickham Park, Hollier Park, Senior Citizens Center, and BTW Recreation Center.
In addition to the plantings at Kelly Lane Park, a new park arboretum, the first of its kind in Creek County, which is used as an educational facility. The Department installed educational and interpretive signage, and developed an educational brochure as well.
In 2000, a $10,000 Tornado Recovery Program grant was procured from the ODA/FD to replenish trees lost during the storm.
In 2005 and 2006, the Department received forestry and landscaping gifts from the Tulsa Home and Garden Show. During this 2-year span, the Parks Department planted another 225 trees and over 1,000 shrubs valued at approximately $50,000.
| American Presidents on the importance of “Play”. |
| “Leave all the afternoon for exercise and recreation, which are as necessary as reading. I will rather say more necessary because health is worth more than learning.” — President Thomas Jefferson |
| “An opportunity for hard, earnest, and joyous play improves health, develops the muscles, expands the lungs, and teaches the moral lessons of attention, self-restraint, courage and patient effort. I think that every city is under the strongest obligation to its people to furnish to the children from the time they begin to walk until they reach manhood, places within the city walls large enough and laid out in proper form for the playing of all sorts of games which are known to our boys and girls and are liked by them.” — President William H. Taft |
| “Play is a sculptor which shapes the life of a child. He confides his dreams to his play and becomes what his play is. This is also true enough of adults to make us seriously concerned for the recreational life of America. We must make the play time of all children and the free time of all the rest of us richer, more satisfying, more enobling.” — Warren G. Harding |
| “Through the whole of life, from childhood to old age, there should be opportunities for the practice of those forms of recreation which renew life, and which make for the joy of living. Therefore, I consider such work as that of our Association, in establishing the best forms of play and guiding the expressions of recreation among our people, to be an essential factor in our national life.“ — President Theodore Roosevelt |
| “Since play is a fundamental need, playgrounds should be provided for every child as much as schools”. — President Theodore Roosevelt |
| “It seems to me of real consequence, morally as well as physically, that the children who are growing up, particularly in our great cities, should have spaces for play and knowledge of how to play.” — President Woodrow Wilson |
| “Physical fitness is not only one of the most important keys to a healthy body, it is the basis of dynamic and creative intellectual activity.” — President John F. Kennedy |
| “We will ask young people across America to give their energy, creativity and commitment to leading their generation away from the health problems that obesity and inactivity can cause.” — President William Clinton |
| “First, be physically active every day, not just once a week or a couple times a week and say, gosh, I’ve met the goal. It’s every day, try to get some physical activity. And moms and dads, by the way, need to stay physically active as well — not just sons or daughters.” — President George W. Bush |
Future Planning
The City’s future planning, currently underway, includes the construction of a transportation and travel routed trail (A new “on-street” bikeway which will connect Pretty Water Lake to the Sand Springs and Tulsa Metro Trails System) system that will provide a new citywide mode of travel connecting the Creek West Turnpike Trail System, which is a major part of the Tulsa Metro Trails Plan, to a variety of City Parks. This key feature of the Master Trail Plan is to connect it to individual trail sites at each of the major recreation facilities within the community such as; Pretty Water & Sahoma Lakes, City Recreation and Senior Centers, the Youth Sports Complex, Community Parks, future Aquatic Park, Schools, new Salvation Army Recreation Center, etc.
Staff is in the preliminary stages of planning for a future “Community Services Center” facility that would serve not only our growing aging adult population, but also house a variety of community service-related organizations that could share operational costs with the City as well as sharing their volunteer work forces in meeting a broader spectrum of community-based needs in the future such as: nutrition, adult day care, transportation, physical therapy, babysitting, social hall/dining room, kitchen, meeting rooms, special classes, indoor pool, indoor walking/jogging track, lounge, performing arts center area, gymnasium, teen center (night time activities), offices, shop/work area for mechanical and wood products (seniors and volunteers could make signs, picnic tables, park benches, and other items that could reduce costs for the Parks Department while we could provide worthwhile opportunities to retirees possessing special skills who want to feel needed and useful), youth activities, food bank distribution, meals on wheels, counseling services, etc.
The facility envisioned would be a focal point for inter-generational programming as some youth organizations such as girl or boy scouts, or other service oriented groups would also be able to office and participate in providing community assistance for needy organizations and projects. Hopefully, someday Sapulpa will consider a bond issue for such a facility that would be a state-of-the-art facility serving broad community needs for the entire County.
PER CAPITA COSTS: $29.90 Per Year
(Only $0.08 Cents Per Day!)
Eight cents ($0.08) per day is all it costs to operate your local Sapulpa Parks and Recreation Department and for the improvements it has made in Sapulpa over the past 15 years. The FY 2006-2007 budget for the City of Sapulpa’s Parks and Recreation Department was approximately $583,000. Thus, the per capita expenditure costs to fund the City of Sapulpa’s Parks and Recreation Department is only $29.90 per year per person.
If this annual cost per person is divided by fifty-two (52) weeks per year it equals only $0.57 cents per week per person. Then, if this cost per person per week is divided by 7 days per week, the cost to operate and to maintain the City of Sapulpa’s Parks and Recreation Department is only $ 0.08 cents per day per person.
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