Grand Junction Parks and Recreation Director Ken Sherbenou said the park is technically closed after 11 p.m. during most of the year. It closes at 10 p.m. in the winter. However, nighttime problems have made a gate necessary.

“There’s a lot of activity that happens at Canyon View after 11 (p.m.), after it closes and we’re really working to mitigate that,” Sherbenou said. “We have a lot of vandalism that happens. We have a lot of drag racing that happens.”

The drag racing in particular has caused damage to the park when a car crashed into the dog park fence and it also presents serious safety issues, Sherbenou said.

“There was, unfortunately, a very sad situation,” Sherbenou said. “One of those people that was, I believe, drag racing, crashed into a tree and there was a fatality. A young man passed away.”

The drag racing typically takes place on the northern side of the park by the dog park, he said.

There is also an unfinished area of the park near the tennis courts where people spin out and do donuts, tearing up the ground, Sherbenou said.

Sherbenou said monitoring the park after hours is a challenge. It’s located on 24 Road north of the city center. Cameras have already been installed in the park and Sherbenou said they were working with the police department to reduce the problems after hours in the park.

“We’re working really closely with the police department to address that and cut down on that,” Sherbenou said. “We have put in cameras. We have Arctic cameras that the PD monitors and records so that we can track when we get someone coming into the facility.”

The city is manufacturing the metal fence and gate with city staff to reduce the cost of the project, Sherbenou said. He said the city doesn’t have a firm timeline to have that installed, but that it would be within the next few months.

The City of Grand Junction recently planted 6,000 flowers at Emerson Park that use a special quilted pattern. Larry Robinson/The Daily Sentinel

OTHER PARKS AND REC WORK

Some areas of Emerson Park have been fenced off to allow recently hydro-seeded grass to establish itself, Sherbenou said.

The city reopened Emerson Park last fall after the new skate park was constructed. However, Sherbenou said they could not complete the landscaping before winter.

“We were very concerned given the high traffic that we’re seeing at Emerson that the seed wouldn’t take,” Sherbenou said. “So (Ford Construction) was very accommodating and actually at their own expense installed all that fencing to keep people out of the seeded areas.”

The city also recently planted 6,000 flowers in the park that use a special quilted pattern, Sherbenou said.

“It’s this really cool movement design in the flowers,” Sherbenou said. “We’re excited to have a bunch of quilters go check out this beautiful design and interact with the skaters and everybody else that goes to Emerson Park.”

The city has seen good usage of the park since it reopened it last spring, Sherbenou said. He said he was excited to see how many young people use the park once the school year ends.

The city has also recently completed a project to add pedestrian lighting to Hawthorne Park and Columbine Park. Sherbenou said that project was funded with a safer streets grant and the contractor went to great lengths to protect the root systems of the trees in the historic parks.

The city is also completing some improvements at Suplizio Field prior to this year’s Alpine Bank Junior College World Series, including a new scoreboard and other improvements around the stadium.

“They’re just now refastening all the bleachers in sections A through D,” Sherbenou said. “That whole section was just painted. They’re just putting the bleachers back in now. And then next week, we’re going to install red rubber around Suplizio.”

“That will look really sharp for JUCO,” he said.