Blue River Park Updates

An easy task Wednesday night became much, much harder Saturday – my task? Write a quick “Status Update” for the Blue River Park.

So, here goes:

Our most experienced board member and incoming president (Mel Stanley (Brite)) died Saturday. Which changes everything.

Well, no, not everything. We won’t give up. The Park rebuild is progressing – we are in the midst of the environmental review process, the County intends to award the contract to complete the last 20% of the Park’s design and construction management to Cameron McCarthy and we expect the actual rebuilding process to begin next summer and be substantially complete by Summer 2028.

We opened the park for a Night Gathering early October and are in the early stages of planning more events in the spring, before reconstruction begins in earnest.

We continue to raise funds for operating expenses. We have two vacancies on the Park Board (who must live in the Park District). We also cneed volunteers (who need not live in the district) to help with short-term and longer-term tasks – both administrative and physical.

The Park is open and we will do our best to keep it open as much as possible during the rebuilding process.

We will miss Mel – and I’m anticipating missing her more as time goes on as we discover all she’s done for this community. I’d been looking forward to working with and learning from her. We will continue to do the best we can, I will dig deeper in honor of Mel, and step forward a bit more. And if I add in a few swear words — thanks Mel, they will be in honor of you.

The Park is located at the northeast end of Rose Street in Blue River. Our address is PO Box 292, Blue River, OR 97413.

Sarah Hunter

Blue River Park Board