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Central Mayor Wade Evans says the city is exploring the option of running its parks because officials are unhappy with BREC’s management of them.
“I haven’t been happy for some time,” Evans tells Daily Report. “I testified at the state a couple of years ago when Sen. (Bodi) White had a bill to separate from BREC, but I believe that we can manage and deliver better services at a local level more efficiently and cost-effectively.”
Evans says options for a resolution include a total separation or a cooperative endeavor agreement.
The mayor says he has had unproductive conversations with BREC Superintendent Corey Wilson. Any move to break away from the BREC system would require legislation. Evans says a final decision won’t be made until February.
“I’m not taking anything off the table, but I can assure you, we’re not satisfied,” he says.
He points to a failure to maintain the baseball fields and to lock the parks at night as two reasons for wanting to branch off.
“The management of the sports park that they built has not been great, and they gave us a bad name over the summer when they leased that tournament complex for a weeklong tournament and didn’t have adequate bathroom facilities in place,” Evans says. “It made Central look bad because it says, ‘Central Sports Park.’”
The tournament was eventually moved to Livingston Parish.
If Central were in charge of its own parks, Evans says it would run like the city. Independent contractors would be hired for the various services required, such as building maintenance and grass cutting.
White filed a bill in 2021 to create independent park systems in the cities of Central and Zachary and, at the time, for the prospective city of St. George once it was incorporated. The bill would have affected 50 parks out of the 180 in the BREC system and slashed BREC revenues by an estimated 30%.
“We’re looking at all of our options,” Evans says. “I think the city can and should be managing the parks inside of our city, because we can do it in a more efficient way that’s advantageous to our citizens.”
