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By DONALD MOTTERN | Staff Writer

PELHAM – The topic of Shoal Creek Park’s potential use as the site of a new community center was discussed during a regularly scheduled Montevallo City Council meeting on Monday, Aug. 12.

In what was meant to be a rather unnoteworthy meeting with no scheduled awards or recognitions on the agenda, the topic of Shoal Creek Park, and its potential designation as the site for Montevallo’s planned community center, soon dominated discussion.

While not listed as a topic on the night’s agenda, a recent meeting of the Montevallo Development Cooperative District mentioned the park as a potential site for the development of a community center. Conversations following that meeting had disseminated discussion of the parks potential use throughout the community.

“I just wanted to voice my concerns regarding the discussions of building a community center at Shoal Creek Park,” Montevallo resident Laura Arnold Molz said. “(There is) no question that our city needs a community center and it would be a welcome addition—I think anyone would agree to that. I would just like to bring forward the ideas of maybe having a more inclusive conversation with the community about it.”

Molz, and her husband, both spoke to the Council and implored them to move forward in the project’s development with community transparency in mind. They both also specifically desired the city choose an alternative site for the discussed project that would not encroach upon Shoal Creek Park.

Shoal Creek Park holds its origins as the result of a land donation performed by Elizabeth Mahler in 2013 that included her family’s 167-acre estate. Mahler, who died in 2015, donated the land with the intention of seeing the property utilized as a historic and natural recreation site.

“I’ve read and heard from people who knew Ms. Mahler, and she was very interested in providing the community access to the outdoors in order to explore and make connections with the natural world, just as her family experienced (during) all the years her family farmed the property,” Molz said. “With her generous donation to our town, she gave us a very rare gift. And, in my opinion, with that gift comes the obligation to preserve and protect it.”

Another member of the community, Kelly Wacker, who has lived in the community for 20 years, also spoke against the park’s potential usage as a site for the center.

“I’m concerned that Shoal Creek Part has been floated as (the location for the community center),” Wacker said. “According to the city’s comprehensive plan, the scenic corridor overlay district on Highway 119, where the park is located, was established to, ‘Preserve and enhance the natural beauty adjacent to and along Montevallo’s roadways, to discourage unsightly development that may tend to mar or detract from the natural beauty.’”

Further describing the park as “unwalkable” and disconnected from any neighborhood, Wacker further doubted Shoal Creek Park as a potential site from a logistical and stylistic standpoint.

“A community recreation center at Shoal Creek Park would significantly disrupt the special quality of the scenic corridor our community cherishes,” Wacker said. “It would also increase traffic congestion and introduce light and noise pollution. Our city is unique in that we have several big parks, each with special character.”

In her summation, Stevens Park serves the community as a sports park, Orr Park serves as a classic American play park with space for athletic fields and special events and Shoal Creek Park serves the city as a nature park.

“The park has historic significance,” Wacker said. “While some people see open fields as so-called empty spaces, Shoal Creek Park provides high value to our community by virtue of not being developed. When Elizabeth Mahler generously gifted her family’s house and farm to us, it was her intention that it be a place where people, young people especially, would have opportunities to play in the fields, woods and creek of her beloved home place.”

In response to the public voices in disapproval of the park’s use, multiple members of the City Council took turns at addressing the collected concerns.

Councilmember Sonya Swords first spoke on the very nature of the project and how it was still in the earliest stages of development.

“The community center was brought up at MDCD,” Swords said. “The architectural company that the county has recommended is William Blackstock. We have not reached out to them yet, but that is who the county has recommended. We want to make sure, before we retain anybody, that the architectural company can assist the city with what the city needs.”

Swords emphasized that the selected architectural firm would need to determine both the appropriate size for the facility to effectively serve the community and identify the space required for its construction and support. She then clarified how that determination alone would be needed before any site could be considered as a possible building location.

She further clarified that any potential community center would most likely be built in scheduled phases rather than all at once due to cost and other factors.

“MDCD has to work with Blackstock to make sure they can do this before we sign agreements with those companies,” Swords said. “And that they can help us with those renderings on multiple proposed sites. Shoal Creek has been mentioned, but you’re here before us today, asking that maybe we should consider other sites. So, maybe we should consider other sites too.”

Swords also said that regardless of the decided location, that a community survey involving a large portion of the community had established there to be a desire for such a facility to be constructed somewhere in the city.

That community survey was the first step in the long process of determining what Montevallo’s new community center may entail.

“What we first had to do was make sure we could afford to build the building” Montevallo Mayor Rusty Nix said. “(We did so) to make sure that we have an interest in building facilities and a building. We obviously have the need for it, so that’s why the surveys went out.”

In addressing calls for transparency, Nix then stated that the surveys were well publicized and easily available for all those interested in being involved.

The concerns surrounding what some in the community are calling a lack of transparency were also addressed by Councilmember Kenneth Dukes.

“As a city councilperson, we’ve had a lot of feedback and I appreciate the people that came tonight, because we need to hear from the people,” Dukes said. “My suggestion has always been (that we) involve the people that we serve—because it’s their city.”

Dukes then discussed past complaints he and other members of the Council have received related to a perceived lack of facilities in Montevallo when compare to the surrounding municipalities.

Dukes further concepted that the city could possibly make a deal with the University of Montevallo to secure property for the project if no alternatives became available.

“We need to consider how we can serve the entire body and make it happen,” Dukes said. “We are landlocked with a lot of situations. There are a lot of ideas (on how to handle this) and I welcome that to come in, but as far as hiding information or making decisions without citizen input, that is totally false.”

Dukes attempted to make clear to the audience that in his summation the community center had not yet left the discussion phase.

“We discuss all this stuff,” Dukes said. “It’s about a discussion. We haven’t planned or spent 50 cents on something to move forward with it. We’re discussing it and we’re discussing it here in an open forum. No decision has been made. All that we have talked about is what we own already. We don’t have any other space. We need a parks and rec center, that’s a must and I think it is something that has to be done. Where we do it at, I think the city’s input will (help determine that).”

As Montevallo City Council meetings are open to the public, MDCD meetings are also public and free for the public to attend. Meetings of the MDCD occur on the second Monday of every month at 1 p.m. in Montevallo City Hall.