Can you imagine your community without parks and green spaces?  Can you imagine your community if there was no one working to keep parks and green spaces maintained and looking nice?  We are lucky in McKinleyville to have a dedicated crew of Parks Maintenance workers that work diligently to keep parks and open spaces looking neat and tidy.

McKinleyville Community Services District’s Park Maintenance team is challenged with maintaining over 150 acres of park and open space land, in addition to maintaining approximately 30,000 square feet of buildings within the boundaries of McKinleyville Community Services District.  That is a lot of mowing, string trimming, weed pulling, hedging and janitorial and garbage clean-up work for a maintenance crew of four people.  That’s right the Parks Maintenance team is comprised of only 4 employees.  I know you may see several MCSD trucks driving the streets of McKinleyville, but many of those trucks are doing work maintaining McKinleyville’s water and sewer systems, and are not part of the Parks and Recreation services in the community.

The challenge of Park and Open Space maintenance work increases during the spring and summer months, when weed and plant growth rates increase. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and the shelter-in-place mandates, the Park Maintenance crew received additional labor support from the County SWAP Program and from Northern Humboldt Employment Services. However since, March 15th that additional support has not been available.  

The Parks Maintenance crew takes a lot of pride in keeping McKinleyville’s parks and green spaces looking nice.  Their work and effort add value to our community and makes it cleaner and safer for each of us. Just imagine what McKinleyville would look and feel like, without well maintained parks and landscaped spaces.  Public spaces don’t take care of themselves.  It takes a team of caring and dedicated folks to keep our community looking good.