Bear up, White Rock Lake aficionados. City consultants are coming soon to ask us what to do about the lake.
Just don’t expect a ton of money.
The good news in the never-ending struggle to rescue the 82-year-old neighborhood oasis is that a team of consultants has been retained to come up with what are called “design guidelines” for future use. This summer, the consultants are scheduled to go to neighborhoods and ask us for suggestions.
The bad news is that the $9-$12 million that Parks District One supervisor Charles Boseman says is required “to do what’s needed at the lake” is nowhere in sight.
The economy has caused the next City bond issue for such projects to be postponed indefinitely, according to City officials.
“Everybody is guesstimating maybe early ’94,” says Claude Thompson, Parks Department assistant superintendent for planning and research.
There’s more bad news: City applications for state grants on projects such as erosion control have been put on ice, Thompson says, “because we weren’t sure we had the annual funds to maintain such a good program. There will be no more grant (applications) except for those that would save us money, which is almost nothing.”
That leaves the City looking for the best ways to spend the money allocated in the 1985 bond program.
“We’ve contracted a team of consultants,” Thompson says.
“The first thing they will do is hold a series of public meetings and listen to the neighborhoods.”
The $3 million-plus job of dredging the rising piles of sediment that threaten the lake, however, will have to wait for the next bond issue, Thompson says, as will a $500,000 dredging study.
“On the upbeat side,” Boseman says, “our cleanups have improved the appearance of the shoreline. We planted 87 trees and will continue that program each winter.”
