Park board hears updates

The Portland Park Board heard a couple of updates about the city’s facilities Tuesday evening.
Brian Isom, board president for Portland Junior League, discussed the status of the league, as well as the baseball diamonds at Weiler-Wilson Park. Ryan Myers, street and parks superintendent, brought the park board up to date about the rest of the city’s parks.
Isom told board members Holly Tonak, Shauna Runkle, Rod Ashman and Donald Gillespie, absent Kristi Betts, that Portland Junior League saw its highest number of players in recent years this summer. There were 16 baseball teams and 13 softball teams, with 160 boys and 127 girls participating.
Isom highlighted the work done at the ball diamonds, mentioning the fence guard recently put on the east diamond and the painting and other improvements to a restroom.
He also mentioned the current issues PJL is facing, which include insufficient drainage on the east diamond and the lack of a storage area.
Isom also mentioned the PJL board’s desire to have a sheltered area or pavilion with picnic tables to allow visitors to have a place to sit and eat their concessions. He said he would like to address these issues, among others, in one to three years.
Myers discussed the possibility of removing the Milton Miller Park tennis courts and planting grass in the area. He had planned to use the courts as a site for the skate park equipment, which was moved from near Portland Pool because of construction, but they were too severely cracked. It is instead set up in the parking lot.
He also noted that drainage work was recently completed at Portland Memorial Park, and gave an update on Portland Water Park.
“The first wall of the pool is being poured today,” he said.