By Alexandra Pedrini

At the city’s June 15 Parks Board meeting, the board discussed policies for community rooms, renovations for the old Murphy School and possible plans for Maxwell Creek.

Current policies regarding use of community rooms in city buildings work on a first come, first serve basis free of charge. With the policy changes, the city will require Murphy residents to fill out a pre-inspection form and sometimes place a refundable $100 deposit. The deposit may only be applied for events city staff members deem necessary, such as when food, drinks or messy crafts are involved in the groups’ plans.

Before a group uses the space, they will be required to complete a pre-inspection form for the room. This will allow people to document any previous damage done keeping them from being charged for the harm. Although there were concerns of people completing the forms after their event and claiming the damage done was present before their event, board member Cary Walker said they must go on the honor system; though this system is not perfect, he said it is the best they have.

The new policies will only allow a group to reserve a room twice a week. Reservations will be done by the group rather than the individual, stopping one organization from reserving the space for several days preventing other groups’ ability to use the space.

The motion carried unanimously to recommend the plan as proposed to city council.

The board plans to turn the old Murphy School building into a community center. Preserving the building’s historical character, the city plans to restore and expand the building providing meeting spaces for local residents.

The building will include four meeting rooms, two of which will share a moveable partition making the rooms larger and a gymnasium with bleachers and a stage. Each room will hold 12 to 22 people and the gym will hold 222 to 500, room capacities vary depending if guests are standing or seated.

There will be a kitchen for use in one meeting room, but there will be no swimming pool, workout or athletic equipment. This building will become a community center and a gathering place not a recreation center, Walker said.

The reconstruction will be done in an eco-friendly way because it will reduce long term costs and will fix original parts of the building in good shape to help cut costs. The total project cost is $3.25 million.

The board passed this proposal with a unanimous vote to be presented to the 4B committee the following evening.

Brian Jones spoke about his plan to build secondary trails to Maxwell Creek. The new trail would begin at the existing nature trail and extend closer toward the creek. Most parts of the trail would be about five feet above the actual creek, but board members worry during heavy rains the trail will become flooded and erode.

Signage may be placed along the trail informing people of the potential dangers present after and during rain.

In order to create this trail, Jones is looking for volunteers and said he has already discussed working with Boy and Girl Scout troupes and Murphy Middle School classes to build and maintain the area. Jones said he is looking into other groups for support as well.

This item was proposed to send to City Council as it is in July and carried unanimously.

The next meeting of the Parks Board will be July 20th at 6:30 p.m.