Weatherford Parks & Recreation Advisory Board Regular Session – January 22, 2026
Weatherford Parks & Recreation Advisory Board Regular Session – January 22, 2026
The Parks and Recreation Advisory Board held its regular session on January 22, 2026, beginning at approximately 5:32 p.m. Central Time (agenda listed 5:30 p.m.; note that the user-provided timestamp indicates 11:30 UTC, which conflicts with the local time listed in the agenda and transcript). The meeting was called to order by Chair Kathy McDonald with a quorum present. Board members in attendance included Grant Mills, Brooke Cray, Rich Zimmer, and Cathy McDonald; members Kindra Lucia and Calynn Mullins were absent. Staff present included Director Jaycob Kirkpatrick. The board approved the minutes from the July 24, 2025 meeting and postponed the election of a Vice Chair to the next meeting. Director Kirkpatrick delivered a comprehensive report on departmental operations, events, and capital projects.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of Minutes: The board approved the minutes of the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board Regular Session held July 24, 2025, via a motion by Rich Zimmer, seconded by another member, with no corrections or discussion.
Discussion Items
- Appointment of Vice Chair: Chair McDonald recommended postponing the election of a Vice Chair because two members (Kindra Lucia and Calynn Mullins) were absent and two new members (Grant Mills and Brooke Cray) were present. The board unanimously approved a motion to defer the item to the next regular meeting on April 23, 2026.
Staff Reports
- Department Overview (Jaycob Kirkpatrick): Kirkpatrick introduced the scope of the Parks, Recreation & Special Events Department, which also manages facility maintenance for all city-owned buildings. He highlighted recent remodels at fire stations and city hall, and noted that the department maintains about 800 acres of mowed land (600 acres contracted out) and oversees medians, including Fort Highway median (now with new Scorpion trucks to allow safe maintenance).
- Parks and Recreation Programs:
- Trout Stockings: Three stockings at Holland Lake Park (December, January, February) in partnership with Texas Parks and Wildlife. A separate kid’s fishing event is planned for April.
- User Agreements: New contracts with Weatherford Little League Baseball/Softball, soccer, and youth football associations will be presented to City Council the following week. Fees per child are placed in a dedicated account for facility improvements.
- Adult Softball: Fall 2025 leagues had 34 teams, a 21% increase over the prior year. Eleven youth tournaments were hosted at Holland Lake.
- Camp Wrangler: The summer day camp is at maximum capacity each year with a waitlist of about six pages; it serves children from morning until 5 p.m., includes field trips and swimming.
- Special Events:
- Monster Dash (October): Attendance exceeded 9,000. Changes are planned for 2026 to manage crowd flow.
- Tree Lighting (November): Approximately 6,500 attendees; featured a 55-foot tree from Michigan and a drone show.
- Jack-O-Lantern Nights at Chandor Gardens: A three-night ticketed event that sells out annually.
- First Monday Trade Days: Vendor spaces: 460 in October, 452 in November, 385 in December (fluctuations due to weather and season).
- **Movies in the Park and other events ongoing.
- Barnyard Cook-Off (barbecue competition): Scheduled for Friday–Saturday, with judging of brisket, chicken, pork, ribs, and a fun category; board members invited to participate.
- Chandor Gardens: Planted 2,000 tulips for spring bloom; winterizing of fountains and irrigation was completed ahead of an expected winter storm.
- Facility Maintenance: Completed generator testing and winterization of city buildings; installed new exhaust systems at fire stations to reduce cancer risk for firefighters; ongoing remodel of the new department office (asbestos abatement completed, down to studs, architect to be hired).
- Capital Projects:
- McGrattan Park Skate Park: An architect/design firm has been hired; renderings will be presented at the next meeting. The project includes a new skate park, playground, expanded parking, and renovated basketball courts.
- Love Street Splash Pad: Under construction; demolition of the old splash pad is 98% complete. The new splash pad is ahead of schedule and expected to be ready by summer 2026. Future phases will include restroom renovation and playground replacement (targeting 2027).
Key Outcomes
- Minutes Approved: Unanimously.
- Vice Chair Appointment: Postponed to the next regular meeting on April 23, 2026.
- Next Meeting: Scheduled for Thursday, April 23, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. at the Cherry Park Building, 300 S Alamo Street, Weatherford, TX.
- No public comments were made, and no future agenda items were identified.
Meeting Transcript
Call the order meeting tonight, and we'd like to call it call the City of Weather Park Room Recreation Board meeting to order today is January 2026. And then time is 532. At this time, the present board members are Grant Mills, Fort Cray, Rich, what's your last name? Zimmer. Cathy McDonald and staff. So we do have a forum process. Kathy Kathy Small. Oh, Kathy. You are here. Okay, I'm sorry. There's a lot of blogs on that. It's okay. Okay, and tonight we'll do our pledge of allegiance to the United States. And to group public for which it stands, one nation under God, individual liberty, and justice for all Texas flag pledge. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas. One day under If it's just I hope everybody has couples of the minutes from the last meeting. That was on July 24th. We could not have a meeting in October. Um we need to approve the agenda from that meeting. If there's no corrections, I'll entertain a motion to approve the minutes. I move. Okay. We have a rich first and second. Um we also have our regular agenda items. Uh the first is a consideration of an appointment to vice chair to the board. Um I'm going to suggest that since we are missing Kendra, we're also missing Kaelin tonight, and we have two new members that really don't know staff all of the board members. Maybe we do a little meet and greet afterwards and talk later, but how about we push this to the next meeting agenda? Can we get a vote on that motion? I'd like to make a motion that we push the vote for the vice presentation. Awesome. Okay. Um staff reports, Janet. All right. Thank you, appreciate it. Um, so just a few things I'm gonna go over today. So, first of all, uh, welcome Grant and Grote to the team. We're excited to have you here. Um love to have your opinions on things and there's discussion as we move forward and get involved. So look forward to that. Real quick before I kind of get into my thing, just uh I'm just gonna do a just a real quick overview of what we do in our department. You may already know, but just kind of just a high level real quick. So this department is parks and rec in special events, but it's also a facility maintenance. And so what that means is we do all the special events that you see in the city, uh, except for the peace festival that's cut over some of the chambers where we do help logistics on this one. So tennis barricades, you know, stuff like that. Uh but that's actually run by the chamber of commerce. Everything else that you see at Harris Park, and that is basically run through us. Uh so we have a special event team that handles that, and then our park staff, our parks maintenance workers. Um, there's about 13 or 14 of them. And that's there are parks maintenance workers, but they're also our event team as well.
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