After a couple of delays, BREC Superintendent Corey Wilson will “definitely” be presenting a report on the agency’s new 10-year master plan at the Metro Council’s Aug. 28 meeting.
That’s according to Assistant Director of Communications Chad Brewer, who tells Daily Report that Chief Operating Officer Andrea Roberts is currently in the process of updating and finalizing Wilson’s presentation.
Wilson was originally scheduled to present the report in June, but the presentation was moved to July to coincide with National Parks and Recreation Month. Brewer says the Metro Council then delayed the presentation once more due to a scheduling conflict with an East Baton Rouge Parish School Board meeting.
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The master plan—Imagine Your Parks 3—will guide BREC’s next 10 years. In early 2023, the agency hired Massachusetts-based Agency Landscape + Planning at a fee of $400,000 to help draft a blueprint for the plan.
BREC has stated that the master plan will focus on reinvesting in the agency’s system to “improve equitable access, environmental stewardship, connectivity, community use and long-term sustainability” across East Baton Rouge Parish.
Wilson’s presentation is set to arrive just a few months before a November ballot that will allow voters to decide on whether to renew two millages that help keep BREC afloat.
One millage, which is up for renewal every 10 years, is 6.2 mills for capital improvements. The other, which is up for renewal every 20 years, is 3.523 mills for the Imagine Your Parks tax. The two millages equate to about 65% of BREC’s budget. The total millage for the agency is 14.463 mills, which comes out to about $78 million.
“The most important thing to share with family, friends and neighbors is that the taxes will remain the same,” Wilson said at the Press Club of Baton Rouge in April.
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According to an update on the master plan that was presented to the BREC Commission in late July, many “transformational” projects that are currently underway will not come to fruition if the Imagine Your Parks tax is not renewed. Those projects include enhancements to the Baton Rouge Zoo and a slew of improvements to community parks across the parish.
That same update shows that BREC in its final master plan is likely to recommend taking between 10 and 15 neighborhood recreation centers that are no longer meeting the needs of their communities offline. In doing so, the agency would be able to devote more resources to fewer facilities in an effort to increase overall facility quality. BREC has not disclosed which facilities would be on the chopping block.
This story originally appeared in an Aug. 12 issue of Daily Report. To keep up with Baton Rouge business and politics, subscribe to the free Daily Report e-newsletter here.