Elgin launches parks website, hiring six

• Reprints

Updated: October 29, 2011 12:44AM

ELGIN — The Elgin Parks and Recreation Department recently launched a new online spot for people to explore the city’s park offerings virtually.

Also, the department recently received a grant to employ six young people to help service some of those parks.

The Discover Elgin Parks website, www.elginparks.org, is up and running. The site interfaces with Google Maps, allowing visitors to browse all the parks and related facilities in Elgin and to learn about their amenities.

Those locations are marked by dots on the map. By scrolling over a specific dot and mouse-clicking on it, an information cell appears telling a bit about the attraction. Viewers also can plot directions to an Elgin park. And there are filters to help search for a park by type of recreational activity being sought.

The locator also offers online access to area bike trails. Being tested is a feature allowing someone to find which of the city’s 69 parks is closest to a particular address.

According to Parks and Recreation Director Randy Reopelle, the site was created for the city by the Chicago office of JJR, a consulting firm that was paid $56,300 to work with Elgin staff and residents for 18 months, putting together the parks and recreation master plan. The web project is part of that effort, which also involved attending related meetings, composing the plan, putting the document together and making it available online as well, at elginparksmasterplan.org/.

Reopelle said it took about four months to create the Discover Elgin Parks website. Parks committee members Tom Armstrong and Carl Missele did a good deal of the leg work, visiting the city’s parks to create an inventory of each one’s features.

“That really was a big help,” Reopelle said.

Discover Elgin Parks is a work in progress. Reopelle noted that further improvements to the site probably will include incorporating information about other area attractions, such as Old Main and the Elgin Area Historical Society Museum. Somewhere down the line, there might be an application for smartphones, too.

Hiring grant

Working in a few of those parks this August will be six young people who soon will be hired through an $18,000 Illinois Youth Recreation Corps grant to assist with conservation projects.

The state announced the last week of June that funding would be available. Elgin applied and was notified July 5 that it would receive the money.

Reopelle said 27 people applied for the positions, which will pay $8.50 per hour. Interviews are being conducted this week.

Because the jobs are specifically to be during the summer, the funding has to be used by the end of August. Thus, Elgin might wind up returning some of the money, Reopelle said.

Reopelle said the six who wind up being hired primarily will be working at Hawthorne Hill Nature Center, the East Side Recreation Center and perhaps at a park site near Elgin High School. The work will include enhancing two fishing ponds, removing invasive plant species, re-establishing native plant species and maintaining trails.

“It should be a learning experience,” Reopelle said. “If they don’t already, some will at least get to know the difference between the buckthorn and maple.”

Reopelle noted that his department has been working with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources on shaping the effort. This, in part, will leave the parks and rec department well-prepared should the state offer such funding again in 2012.

Free swim on Fridays

One other program will benefit even more youths.

At Lords Park Pool, on the city’s east side, the Elgin Parks and Recreation Department is offering free open swim on Fridays this month for residents 18 years of age or younger.