The Leelanau County Parks and Recreation Commission made progress on updating its Master Plan during a special "public input" meeting last Wednesday.

Commission chairman Steve Christensen reported that about a dozen members of the public attended the meeting to offer ideas during a two-hour gathering in the Community Meeting Room in the lower level of the new county Government Center in Suttons Bay Township.

The meeting was facilitated by Patty O’Donnell of the Northwest Michigan Council of Governments, which is acting as a consultant on the Master Plan update project. The current Parks and Recreation Master Plan was drafted in 2002. Updating the plan is a requirement for continued eligibility for state grant funding available for parks and recreation programs.

Currently, Leelanau County operates only two parks – Old Settler’s Park in Empire Township on Big Glen Lake, and Myles Kimmerly Park in Kasson Township. The county is in the process of trying to acquire the former Veronica Valley Golf Course property in Bingham Township for use as a county park. Although grant funding to cover much of the cost of acquisition has been promised by the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund, red tape in Lansing has delayed the process of acquiring the property.

Christensen said he expected to hear back from state officials in Lansing within about 40 days, but expressed frustration with the pace of the state bureauracy.

Suttons Bay Township is undergoing a similar delay in its effort to acquire property for a park just south of the Suttons Bay Public Schools campus. Among the comments compiled from last week’s “public input” meeting were several suggestions that the county work more closely with townships and villages in managing parks and recreation programs.

O’Donnell said last week that she was still in the process of compiling and organizing comments offered at the April 23 meeting and would present the information to the Parks and Recreation Commission at an upcoming meeting, along with a proposed draft of the Master Plan update.

According to an unedited compilation of comments received at the meeting, a number of members of the public indicated they wanted the county to have more parks and believed more funding should be made available for parks and recreation programs. Several also expressed the idea that the county’s parks should be connected by non-motorized trails if possible.