Mark Tummons, the new Leander Parks and Recreation Department director, moved into his new role in September. He studied recreation at Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and earned his master’s degree in education with an emphasis on recreation and administration from Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth. He has worked in the recreation industry for more than 30 years, and 25 of those years were spent working for the Tennessee Recreation Services Division and as the assistant director and director of parks and recreation in Clarksville, Tennessee.
What are some reasons why you moved to Leander?
One of the main draws was the excitement that’s been building because of the growth of Leander—the opportunities to be on the front lines of developing a true park system. [The growth] over the past 10-12 years has been fantastic for a park system, but I foresee in the next 10-15 years the explosion is going to continue. … There’s incredible leadership. Seeing the dedication [of all the other city employees], their passion, their knowledge, is just incredible, and seeing how everything interrelates or interlocks together—police, fire, planning, engineering, parks—we all collaborate, and that is just a really neat situation. You don’t find that in a lot of communities, and I’ve worked with lots of communities across the state of Tennessee and areas of the Southeast. Each and every day I’m blown away by it. Not only city employees, but citizens that we meet and run into, the contractors, the developers—everybody seems to be on the same page of developing an incredible community here. I’m excited about being a part of that.
What are some upcoming plans for current and future Leander parks?
We have funding in place to develop a synthetic turf field at Robin Bledsoe Park. Our goal at this point is to have that installed and in place in early fall of next year—my goal is Sept. 1.
Veterans Park is really a hidden gem behind the library. Not many people know what’s there or are really aware of what’s going on, but we’re very close to wrapping up Phase 1, which is the military flags and the nice overlook of the lake. We’re getting ready to move into the design and development of Phase 2. There’s a preliminary design but now it’s getting into construction documents, so we can get that bid out and get started on that next year, which includes a walking trail, a small amphitheater, some other amenities that tie the park into the library into Mason Homestead. So it’s going to create a campus with the historical—the Mason Homestead—and the intellectual—the library. I think it all ties together so beautifully; it’ll be such a rich spot for people to come where they just want to read a book on a park bench.
Benbrook Park and the new ball fields are another current project; they were completed earlier this year. There’s still some additional work to be done, but what an incredible facility. They really went all out to make that top-notch.
What future projects are you most looking forward to?
I’m excited about a lot of the current greenway trail projects that are taking place. We have trail systems in two subdivisions that will be public trails once they’re built that will connect into [Georgetown’s] Garey Park. You’re talking about 10-plus miles of a greenway trail from Georgetown to Leander, and how incredible is that? There may be additional opportunities to expand it even further, but I think that should be a strong goal of ours, to make that connection.
The city has purchased property on Toll 183A along the San Gabriel River, and we’re in the process of purchasing another parcel. So it’ll give us about 77-80 acres, which is an incredible size of park. It’s still to be determined what will be on the park site. We don’t technically have any fields for girls softball, so that would be a strong goal of mine. If it’s not at that park, [a goal] will be to build a girls softball complex somewhere else. Plus we’re lacking on our soccer amenities and expansion. We’re at nearly 50,000 people now, and if the projections are true over the next five years and we basically double in size, what we have at Bledsoe won’t even touch what we really need.
I’m very much looking forward to Lakewood Park—that’s right off Crystal Falls [Parkway] and right off Cold Springs and Hazlewood [developments]. We have a $400,000 grant from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. It’s more of a natural-type park, but there will be some active components—being able to kayak, paddleboard, canoe [and] fish. What I’m really excited about is a dog park. I think it’s really time for our first [public] dog park in the community.
We’re redeveloping a little bit of Devine Lake as well; I think that’s an incredible opportunity. It’s such a tremendous space, and with the Devine Lake subdivision going to the north, it will also have additional property that will become park property. So Devine Lake in its entirety will be this really cool, large piece of park property and green space.
Do you hope to start any new programs or special events?
We’re always looking for new ways to do things and bring people together. We are looking at a new spring festival, whether it be next spring or the following spring. We want to do more with the downtown Christmas event that we have. We are putting up the Christmas tree, and we just built a brand new concrete stage area so we can have choir presentations from the schools and Santa Claus.
We are limited because we do not have an indoor facility; we do not own a community center or an indoor recreation center. We’re working hopefully together with Leander ISD in trying to develop a recreation [youth] basketball league.
We are looking at expanding the Bluegrass Festival next year. We were extremely encouraged by the amount of people we had on Friday and Saturday nights—about 2,500 both nights, which was significantly higher than last year’s. We’re looking at adding more amenities to that festival.
What will be the most interesting or challenging part of your new job?
Well all of it is interesting. … Challenging is ensuring that our developments, subdivisions, neighborhood developments, are providing quality amenities. There are standards in the recreation industry, if you will, for the types of playgrounds and athletic fields and pools, and just to make sure that everything continues to be safe for all those users. So that’s a challenge, and we’ve got so many going on and being developed. The other challenge will be to continue to create that connectivity between those neighborhoods through greenways and trails. Natural areas, wildlife habitat and environmental concerns, such as wetlands, is also always a challenge, so making sure that we’re taking care of our environment. One of things I’m excited about and what I think is interesting—we have a parks and recreation master plan that was created in 2011. We’re looking to update that in the next 12-18 months. [The city] will hold a series of public workshops, so people can have input on what they want to see in their community as far as parks and recreation. We’re calling it a Parks and Public Spaces Comprehensive Plan. I think the master plan is a great opportunity to bring all of that together in one document, and not just sit on a shelf and gather dust but really be an active living, breathing document, and it gives us direction for the next 10-20 years.
