Facts and Useful Information

Ann Margolin

Park board Member, District 13 

Interesting facts:  The Dallas Park and Recreation Department has 374 neighborhood, community and regional parks.  These cover 21,000 park acres including 17 lakes with 4,400 surface acres of water at 17 park sites, 17,196 acres of greenbelt / park land, and 61.60 miles of jogging and bike trails at 24 locations.  In addition there are  258 tennis courts at 5 tennis centers, 183 playgrounds, 128 soccer fields, 87 softball diamonds, 115 picnic pavilions, 47 recreation centers, 12 football fields, 30 baseball diamonds, 6 "18-hole" golf courses and 7 spraygrounds. Unfortunately, the public does not always treat these wonderful assets with the care they deserve.

Interesting fact:  Last year the Dallas Park and Recreation

Department spent $180,000 taking trash to the dump.  Due to the

amount of littler in the parks, ALL park maintenance staff pick up

litter on Monday mornings. Mowing, forestry and athletic field

maintenance are suspended while crews pick up litter.  What a

waste of time and money!  The Dallas Park and Recreation

Department launched a campaign called Communities Against Trash.

A PowerPoint  presentation called “The Morning After” illustrates

the amount of trash generated in our parks during a typical weekend

from picnics, special events and sports. If you want to see photos go to

(http://www.dallascityhall.com/pdf/park_and_rec/PkrMorningAfter.pdf).

 We are asking everyone to take a stand and "Stash Your Trash" while

enjoying our beautiful City of Dallas Parks. If you would like to get

involved, please contact the Dallas Park and Recreation Department

at 214-670-1914.

Useful Information:  It is now possible to register for classes at the

Dallas recreation centers online at

http://online.activecommunities.com/dallas.  Also summer catalogues

of classes are now available at recreation centers.  There are all

kinds of classes including yoga, swimming, arts, crafts, tennis and

team sports.  These are excellent classes and very reasonably

priced.