Meghan F. George

I’m very excited about the investments the City is making at Madison Park, and the fact that we were able to quickly and creatively meet many of the community’s immediate goals.

I make it a point to listen to what our residents and taxpayers see as key priorities. This year, people have made it clear that additional resources were needed at Madison Park as soon as possible. I was able to work with my directors and our city team to find and repurpose resources and move quickly to implement those improvements to the park this year while we develop a future long term strategic plan for the rest of the park.

None of these capital costs were in our original 2021 parks budget or were expected as part of our ongoing maintenance and improvement calendar at our parks this year.

Through our community conversations, new needs were discovered, and it became clear that this had to be a top priority for 2021. My administration was able to be creative, and dedicate dollars left over from other projects that came in under budget. Although not originally on the radar for 2021, we still were able to make this project happen while living up to our commitment to fiscal responsibility and high quality amenities for our residents.

I want to thank our team at the City for their hard work and dedication to making the most of our limited taxpayer dollars while introducing more high quality amenities to our parks.

I also want to send a big thank you to the members of the community who contributed, including the Friends of Madison Park, the Lakewood Outdoor Basketball Committee, and the Madison Court Block Party. Lakewood residents are deeply committed, and this project benefited immensely from community input and engagement.

Visit lakewoodoh.gov for details about initial park improvements on the way.