BY KATIE ALLEN
Within the next few weeks Wadsworth City Council will meet to vote on the introduction of Holmesbrook park to Medina County Park District. For the past few months, MCPD has been looking into Holmesbrook park here in Wadsworth with many ideas for improvements.
“It’s got all the boxes checked off, it’s got the feel and the look of a county park,” said Nate Eppink, Administration Director of MCPD. “So that’s really been our focus and why we’re interested in Holmesbrook. We’ve looked at maybe a small picnic shelter or small play area, and improving the pond that’s already there.”
Formed in 1965, the political subdivision is a country wide entity, with about 30 full time employees. They already manage more than 7000 acres of land and 50 different trails in the county.
Their main focus is managing different areas of land in the county. The different areas they manage range from parks and nature reserves to multipurpose trails and wildlife sanctuaries. The MCPD acquires land from either donations, buying it or making lease deals with city council.
“We have wanted to have a presence in the city of Wadsworth for some time,” Eppink said. “Instead of buying land there, we are talking with the city about maintaining Holmesbrook Park as a county park.”
The 58 acre natural area park has walking trails and even a pond, but has room for many improvements that can be made through MCPD. With many plans for these improvements, everything would be covered by MCPD allowing for the city of Wadsworth to focus on other projects.
“We are in the process of creating an agreement between the city and MCPD, we have had a lot of discussions and I think we both feel that it would be mutually beneficial,” Eppink said.
Once an agreement has been drafted, both sides will take the agreement to a vote. On the Wadsworth side it would be City Council and for MCPD it would be the board of directors.
“In order to ‘turn the keys over’ to them we need to have an agreement that would state the length of this partnership, what the details will be, what type of maintenance they are going to cover, ways that the city would be involved, those kind of details,” said Robert Patrick, a member of Wadsworth City Council.
Lease agreements through MCPD can be anywhere through 25-100 years, this one being 50 years to make sure there is both enough time to make plans and improvements. With MCPD’s help, Wadsworth believes that this agreement will help to maximize the value and usage of the park.
