It has a familiar ring: warning signs for Garland park's July 4 overcrowding needed creative solutions long before now

Garland City Council voted 8-1 on Tuesday night to close Windsurf Bay Park on this July 4 because the park was beyond successful on Independence Day 2017. The park abuts Lake Ray Hubbard and draws thousands from far and near.

Ignoring the signals regarding one of Garland's hidden jewels on July 4 is yet another example of a looming and potentially embarrassing crisis of poor planning that our city now faces.

If I could change only two things about our City of Garland municipal government, it would be to get it to spot problems faster and then react to them quicker and more creatively.

I was reminded of this Monday night as city council in work session discussed what to do about Garland's popular Windsurf Bay Park on the upcoming July 4 holiday. It was underscored even more so during the Tuesday-night regular council session on the same subject.

For nearly a year, city council has been warned that the Fourth of July last year at Windsurf Bay Park in Garland's southeast area abutting Lake Ray Hubbard was a mess and that the city needed to take proactive steps this year to avoid a potentially explosive situation.

Rather than study a whole range of possible positive options, the solution was a quick and easy negative decision to close the park on July 4 from midnight until 6 a.m. on July 5. Never mind that this "solution" carries with it another whole range of possible repercussions—many of which could end up tarnishing the city's image once again.

Windsurf Bay Park is one of the best-kept secrets and is a real jewel for our community. On the right is a bronze plaque noting the cooperating of the City of Garland and the State of Texas parks departments in establishing the park.

If something about this has a familiar ring to it, it should. Baylor Scott & White-Garland's closing went down the same path. Handwriting on the wall, handwriting on the wall, then bam! Garland has a potential crisis of mega proportions. Once again!

The controversy over Garland's 50-plus-year old animal shelter that has raged far and wide in recent weeks is another example of the city dragging its feet when positive action is needed.

According to Garland Police and city officials, the celebration of The Fourth at Windsurf Bay Park has grown in popularity in recent years so that people travel here from surrounding cities—and a few from out of state—to celebrate July 4 at our city park, which is almost totally lacking in good roads (they desperately need to be graded), adequate restrooms (nothing but a few portacans), and organized parking—all the things that are "supposed" to make a park more appealing.

A handful of portapotties can barely handle the daily visits from swimmers, fishermen, and picnic-ers to the park. No wonder it was such a mess last July 4 when thousands descended on our lovely park by the lake.

The crowd at the park last year was described as "in the thousands", with people doing all sorts of unacceptable things such as swimming in the lake without a lifeguard present, barbecuing along the shore line and dumping their used charcoal and ashes wherever they pleased, smoking marijuana and drinking beer and throwing their drink cans on the grass, illegally shooting off fireworks within city limits, and celebrating in overcrowded conditions so bad that emergency crews couldn't get through to them if, for instance, someone fainted from the heat or a firecracker burned someone else's hands.

Mercy me, it sounded a little like Woodstock back in 1969. Fortunately at least no one has described someone ripping off their clothes and running up and down the beach in their birthday suits!

The movie, Field of Dreams, made famous the expression, "If you build it, he will come." Our Garland parks department and the State of Texas parks department worked together to create this little gem. We built it. Now they come. And we want them to stay away this year because success outran lack of preparedness? That makes little sense to many of us.

The inscription on this bronze plaque says, "Windsurf Bay Park, a Texas Local Parks, Recreation and Open-Space Fund Project sponsored by the City of Garland (and) Texas Wildlife and Parks Department".

People from as far away as Louisiana and Oklahoma have discovered Windsurf Bay Park—something we've for years been begging Garlandites and non-Garlandites to do about our downtown area, our Firewheel Center, and other city hot spots. Discover us! Please pay attention to Garland; we really do have great things here!, has been the cry.

The "discovery" of Windsurf Bay Park wasn't supposed to happen. But after one trip through there in preparation for this blog, I can see why it did. It is truly one of Garland's hidden jewels. It's quite beautiful, appealing, and restful—all elements that a park should be.

The park did not appear to be on any city leader's radar screen or list of top priorities until last year after the last July 4 festivities. How the word spread far and wide about our little ole Windsurf Bay Park being so ripe for celebration on July 4, no one on city council or from city staff seems able to fully explain—or let alone comprehend. Apparently the grapevine mixed with the Internet is highly powerful. And maybe the intrigue of a little ruggedness and beach-like feel at the park added to its charm and appeal.

The situation is also akin to someone planning and building sidewalks, only later to observe that people were making their own walking trails in the grass. Sidewalk planners might have benefited from first observing the natural patterns.

Complicating matters further, no one on council or in our city government had ever conducted a "catalyst study"—our city's ideal of how local government should revive an area—specifically on the park itself or even thought about it being something that potentially could draw people into our city—and at the same time make this a more lively place to live.

This road is the only entrance into the lakeside park.

Until, of course, after Garland Police Chief Mitch Bates did what he had been told to do: arrive at Council Monday night with plans for shutting down Windsurf Bay Park on July 4 (with the potential of returning to ask the same thing on Labor Day, another high-use occasion) and telling those awful non-Garlandites to leave our fair city and take their money (that they might spend nearby) elsewhere.

That's right. The message the city is sending is, "Leave our park empty on July 4. And take your money with you as you go! (Never mind that you might use it to boost Garland's economy.) And don't come back unless we tell you that you can."

Not exactly the kind of welcome mat the city needs to be putting out anywhere!

Wednesday morning after the council vote, the city's parks department was posting signs throughout the park and at the entrance telling people, in English and Spanish, that the park would be closed on July 4. 

Apparently we'd rather have an empty park, a temporary city-funded $5,200 fence (with a potential $700 per month additional rental fee if the city decides it needs to continue), and police apparently on overtime guarding the fortress than to figure out what the "vibe" is that has these visitors find so enchanting in a tiny, relatively unknown but quaint spot in our city.

We certainly don't want the likes of these people from outside our borders using a facility in our fair City of Garland. Right? Certainly we don't want to "make lemonade out of lemons", now do we?

Fortunately, sanity began to take hold of the city council meeting Monday night. At first two city council members expressed dismay that the city would be closing the park on July 4 and had no alternative plan for the situation. Eventually some who at first seemed to be encouraging the closing started backtracking and started stating their desire to make the park better—after this July 4. By Tuesday night only one council member—Rich Aubin of District 5—stood firm against the closing of the "highly successful" park while the others voted for closure.

Some among the eight who voted "yes" to closure argued that the city really has no options, with the July 4 holiday bearing down us like a fast-moving freight train. Time is definitely NOT on the city's side now, they said. After seeing the park Wednesday morning, June 20, I'm not so sure. Setting it up properly now would be a tremendous challenge but not impossible. Where is Garland's old "can-do spirit"?

Meanwhile, I am still left with that gnawing question, "What will it take for our leaders to wake up and smell the coffee BEFORE bad things happen again in this city?"

When Baylor Scott & White abruptly closed our city's only full-service hospital on February 28, city leaders had been warned more than a year earlier (and the handwriting had been on the wall for nearly a decade—see my blog on 12/19/2017) this might happen, but our leaders lived in denial, believing that something or someone was going to rescue them.

Unfortunately, the story is not new for Garland. Wait! Hesitate! Look to old solutions and past formulas. And let's console ourselves with a pat on the hand that says "everything is going to be OK".

It will, won't it?

"Just be quiet and don't say anything and maybe, just maybe, our problems will go away" often seems to be our motto here.

Meanwhile, our sister cities to the east, north, and west, blossom and sizzle. And some of our council members get irked at anyone who dares to suggest we are NOT in that fast-moving group.

Instead of renting a fence to seal off the park and positioning Garland police officers and squad cars to ward off any problems at Windsurf Bay Park—once again risking negative publicity about our city—why wasn't a citizens committee formed earlier this year and filled with blue-ribbon creative types empowered to look for win-win inventive solutions? The good idea of possibly requiring advance reservations and capping the number of entrants, turning others away once a safe cap was reached, was proposed Monday night by a brand-new city councilperson, but it didn't get enough traction to keep the park open this year. (Chief Bates said from 7-8,000 guests used the park last year.) A citizens group created to study the Windsurf Bay dilemma could have hatched up ideas such as this much earlier so some solutions could have been in place well before this July 4 loomed upon everyone.

Next to the lake, with storm clouds rolling in, Windsurf Bay Park is a truly beautiful place. Its dirt/sand roads, however, could use a visit from a tractor with a sharp grader!

Parking problems? Did anyone ever consider utilizing the parking lots at several nearby churches or apartment complexes (apparently destroyed by the tornado) and providing shuttle service for park patrons, then charging them an entrance fee to the park to pay for the shuttle and extra security?

Maybe our annual visitors really don't know that they are not supposed to dump their used charcoal and ashes on the ground in our parks. That's not posted in the park-rules signs already in place at Windsurf Bay Park. (However, littering, shooting fireworks, drinking alcoholic beverages, etc. are already posted!)

On Tuesday night Aubin suggested signs stating that no lifeguard is on duty. On Wednesday people were swimming and fishing along the shoreline. If these signs are needed on July 4, they also are needed on other days of the year as well. Did anyone ever think of that before Tuesday night?

And the issue of people parking in the nearby neighborhood? Doesn't the city own hundreds (maybe thousands) of barricades—far more than enough to block off access to all those streets? (As a rough estimate, I would say less than 50 would be needed.) And couldn't we have asked our Citizens on Patrol to staff those barricades voluntarily?

Our leaders seem to function with the idea that there are no solutions, except the most narrow and limited ones from the past. I doubt most have ever heard the entrepreneur's heart-cry, "Seize the moment!"

Take, for instance, another hot-button topic in our city right now: our antiquated animal shelter. Ever since I drove to Plano's animal shelter years ago and rescued a castaway Bichon/Poodle for our daughter after earlier visiting Garland's animal shelter and finding no suitable pet for a person with severe cat-and-dog dander allergies, I've been concerned that Garland's animal shelter needs to be replaced with something much better, more adequate, and more modern. Even then I knew that Plano dazzles while Garland plods and falls further and further behind.

Now, of course, the city is once again put in a bad light because of all the unresolved issues at the animal shelter that were brought to the surface by the controversy generated by a persistent CITIZEN group—including, heaven forbid, an "outsider" from Dallas—not willing to settle for our status quo. A citizens task force immediately after the last mayoral election starting to work on planning a new animal shelter with an eye to upgrading services could have been well on the road to having a solution.

City council members can no longer hide behind some members' disdain for our former mayor as their excuse for not leading properly. They wasted far too much time voting against things just because they presumed the former mayor supported those issues. So now there's no one else to blame for their blunders or lack of leadership except themselves.

It's time for council to start becoming proactive instead of bureaucratic. Foot-dragging and being reactive need to become council practices of the past—not carried forth into the future.

Garland City Council was at a fork in the road regarding Windsurf Bay Park Monday night. These signs tell much about that dilemma.