Enhancing Marco’s Beauty and Enjoyment

Allyson Richards’ motivation for joining City Council’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee was simple. 

“I love Marco Island,” she said, “and I just thought, ‘That's something that I can do. I don't know anything really about water, besides, it's all around us and we need it. I know a little bit about parks, and I use the parks, and my family uses the parks, and I think most people in Marco use parks.’ It's something I felt that I could get behind and that I could help with in some small way.”

Her membership came to an end recently, after she completed her second four-year term on the committee, the last three as chairman. 

The Parks and Recreation Committee provides advice to the city manager. Its responsibilities include soliciting and evaluating public input on parks and recreation needs, reviewing facilities for usage and adequacy, reviewing programs and contractual services, reviewing and making recommendations regarding program financing, encouraging program coordination with other organizations that provide recreational and fostering programs for the island youths 

Richards cited several projects the committee was involved with as highlights of her tenure, including: 

• Improvements to Veterans Community Park, including the bandstand shell pavilion, completed during her time as chairman.
• Improvements to the Winterberry Drive linear park.
• Ensuring the grounds were well-maintained each year at the Canine Cove Dog Park on Andalusia Terrace.
• The installation of shade providing structures at Mackle Park.

She identified creating more shade at the city’s parks and recreation facilities as a need, especially at Veterans Community Park. 

“I love it when I go there at this time of the year,” she explained. “There're people out in the evening, and people sitting at the tables and having food, children playing on the multigenerational structures. You have people just walking around. But when it's August, there's no one there because there's no shade. You can't use the park, which I think is a shame.”

Richards said advisory committees play an important role for the city’s government and its citizens. 

“They give residents a chance to be directly involved and to give their opinions and to listen to other points of view,” she said, referring to the committees’ public meetings. “And I think it's really good when the city councilors come and listen, because that's where it starts. It's the grassroots effort of democracy. It always makes me proud to hear people go and speak their mind, because that's what democracy is.”

Richards’s successor on the committee is Dolores Siegel, who is serving as the vice-chair.

Siegel described her presence as an outgrowth of the civic involvement that she’s indulged in for years on the island. 

She’s past president of the Friends of the Marco Island Library, where she’s now the treasurer. Siegel also volunteers with the Our Daily Bread Food Pantry and the Guadalupe Center in Immokalee, which provides educational and support programs for that community’s children. She’s also on the steering committee for the annual Buddy Day program, which brings second graders from the Guadalupe Center to Marco for a day of arts and crafts, beaching, nature exploration, and fun at Hideaway Beach Club’s picnic grove.

“I just thought, I'm interested in this, and this would be a place that maybe I could add something or help out or do a little something for the town I live in and care about,” she said about joining the parks and recreation committee. 

Her comments on the value of advisory committees echoed those of Richards. 

“Marco Island is a small town, and I think that the advisory committees are a place where if you have something you want to add to the city or that you're not happy with, it's easier to go to the advisory committee and discuss it than to city council, standing up on a Monday night and discussing it there. It's easier to start with the advisory committee, and then they can take your issue and run with it.”