Jacqueline Appling encourages the Williston City Council to support her group’s effort to breathe life back into Cornelius Williams Park.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Williston City Council President Justin Head offered a plan Tuesday night endorsed by his fellow board members and community leaders to stage a city-sponsored movie night at Cornelius Williams Park on Dec. 18 as a starting point to hopefully reopen and better manage a park ravaged by rampant vandalism.
A community group, Friends of Cornelius Williams Park (FOCWP) offered to provide whatever support services the city would need to revamp the park and also offered to sponsor movie night as a way of generating public support for the recreational facility.
The discussion led to questions about how the city could approve a permit for the event on such short notice. Head suggested the best way forward was to let the city sponsor the movie night in the same way it has sponsored movie nights at other city parks.
“The city needs to handle it. We just turned down a special event after hours because we haven’t clarified hours, we haven’t done those things,” Head said. “Rather than have an outside group put on an event right now, until we clarify those things, I think the city needs to put on the event the same way we’ve done at other parks.”
His suggestion met with widespread approval from council members and from community leaders who hope to resurrect the badly damaged park and bring back sports and family-friendly community activities that could help restore the park’s reputation and facilities.
The park is located in East Williston and has the unusual distinction of being the only city-operated park in the unincorporated part of the county, which makes the facility unlike any other recreational facility operated by Williston. The location poses challenges for establishing city rules and regulations.
Cornelius Williams Park isn’t equipped with night lighting. The city, out of frustration, locked its bathrooms to prevent vandals from continuing to rip sinks off the walls and build campfires inside the bathrooms to cook food.
Head also instructed staff, with the consent of the full council, to begin researching all the issues associated with the park and establishing rules and regulations and hours of operation. Staff will figure out how Friends of Cornelius Williams Park can work with the city, its police force, and sheriff’s office to make the park more family and neighborhood friendly.
While short notice for scheduling movie night won’t be easy for city staff, Head made it clear he wants the movie night to go off as planned. He said it was apparent that Jacqueline Appling, who spoke for FOCWP, wants to use movie night as a starting point to begin raising-funds and rehabbing the park’s image. He said movie nights are nothing new in Williston.
“There’s been a lot of talk here about not reinventing the wheel. This has been done by us at multiple parks. We need to do whatever we’ve done. This is what I’m getting at,” Head said.
Appling, who said she has been trying to revive community interest and involvement in the park since 2011, assembled FOCWP to work with the city on making the park a community asset. She said she has been in contact with City Manager Jackie Gorman, City Clerk Latricia Wright, and City Planner Laura Jones as well as community leader Albert Fuller for guidance on the best way for FOCWP to assist the city.
“Our mission for the group is to grow with what we have and utilize the people that already have those things going and not reinvent the wheel,” she said.
Appling said the group is trying to plan ahead to give families enough time in their schedule to take advantage of movie night.
“I’m hoping the board will give us permission to try something, to start something to see where we go from here with the park,” she said. “We need to start with something in order to know how these things are going to play and what we need to change and address.”
More than one council member asked whether Appling has established FOWCP as a nonprofit organization. The council also said they didn’t have any names of volunteers in the group. Appling said she would provide those names to Wright. The group remains strictly an organization of volunteers.
Appling and Fuller said they want to post volunteers at the park who could call law enforcement if they saw vandalism occurring. Appling hopes the committee can work to address issues such as safety, parking, accessibility to the park through exits and entrances, utilization of the park and maintenance, and improvements.
Fuller, retired Levy County Extension Director, urged the council to view the efforts of Appling and her volunteers as a means of saving “a very important city park.”
“There has been a disconnect between the communities surrounding Cornelius Williams Park and the city in terms of communication,” he said. “There is a feeling of neglect with that specific park. What we want to do is we can provide information to the community because we live in that community and likewise can provide information to the city, particularly because C.J. (Zimoski, assistant city manager) only has so many hours of the day to work.”
“We view this as a way of enhancing what you do by at least taking part of that vision of the park and community off your plate and provide a synopsis for you of the way the community is looking, the things that are coming out of the community. We can actually provide communication to people in the community. I think this is a win-win situation if it’s approved. We also look at the fact that we’re adding hands and eyes and ears for the city, making sure when we talk about volunteers, we’re looking for a good number of volunteers, a minimum of 15.”
City Manager Jackie Gorman said she is aware there are jurisdictional issues with a city park being located in the unincorporated part of the county. Her first move would be to contact the county officials to find out how they view a city park that is located in an area governed by the Levy County Commission.
She said the city also needs to look at how the park would be patrolled.
“I know that’s been a problem in the past,” she said.
Gorman said she wants the entire council to be comfortable with setting hours for park operation. Does the council want to open at sunrise and close at sunset? She has heard talk about outdoor concerts at the park at night. She said the city has a noise ordinance but the park is located in the unincorporated area of the county. She doesn’t want noise to impact neighbors.
“I know there’s been talk about late-night concerts. We’re going to put some rules to that; we don’t want to cause problems with this but we do want enjoyment of the park and we want it to be healthy and safe for everyone, so let me start reaching out to the county to find out what they have in their mind about this park and report back. That way that’s put to rest,” Gorman said.
Gorman said the city has a resolution on file establishing operating hours for its recreational parks, but Cornelius Williams Park isn’t mentioned in the document. She said the city will have to address hours of operations. She said the city will want to decide what type of specific events would be allowed and when.
Gorman said the city also will look at obtaining grants to make improvements to the park.
“It’s a process and we’re just knocking one thing off at a time and we have to start at the county,” she said. “Once we get that out of the way I think we can feel better about going forward.”
Marvin Johnson, a Williston businessman for 20 years, encouraged the council to move forward with improving the park and not just close it down to the community.
“I like getting citizens involved. I like making this park what it could be,” Johnson said.
Head told Johnson the city closed the park bathrooms out of necessity.
“We were backed into a corner when we decided to lock the bathrooms. Every day they were getting destroyed and that’s taxpayer money being thrown away,” Head said. “To me, this discussion is a possible way to change that and move in a different direction.”
Updated Photos December 11, 2020
City of Williston Regular Meeting December 8, 2020; Posted December 10, 2020
