Get firsthand insights into the future of public spaces in Johnston County with Parks and Open Space Director, Adrian O'Neal. In this episode of the Best of Johnston County Podcast, host Jonathan Breeden delves into the upcoming countywide park plan and the roles of leaders in shaping its implementation.

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Adrian O'Neal: county citizens. Correct. And there's a great number of good or great parks directors throughout those towns you were just talking about. And there's a great number of partner groups that we work with on a regular basis. One of the things that we're tasked with is administering the Open Space Fund.

And we've had two cycles of Open Space grants now, where we I don't know the exact number, but it was a little over one and a half million dollars has been distributed throughout the county for those local groups to build capital projects and to purchase land in their particular areas. And I think that's really important for us to do.

And it gets a little technical as far as where that money comes from, but it is a good turnover of money this drive through fees and things like that, that really helps out those smaller groups.

Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another episode of the best of Johnson County podcast. I'm your host, Jonathan Breeden. And today we have a special guest with us, Adrian O'Neill, the director of the Parks and Rec in Johnson County. And I've been looking forward to this since I was able to get it scheduled because Johnson County is really starting to move forward with more of a countywide park plan, which they've not had in the first 20 years.

If you listen to one of the previous episodes I think back on the first episode we talked to Paul Flaherty of HDR Commercial. We talked about some of the parks, but him and I didn't have nearly the knowledge that Adrian O'Neill has. And that's what made me think we should invite him on to talk with us.

Welcome Adrian.

Adrian O'Neal: Thank you for having me.

Jonathan Breeden: So anyway just start, tell me uh, your name, your position and how long you've had that position.

And the, what we do in our department is we look for properties and facilities that can become parks in the future and trails throughout the county and be designated as open space throughout the county.

Adrian O'Neal: That's correct.

You know, I mean, you know, depending on where you call the Cleveland community. And you know, there was no parks program

Adrian O'Neal: and we are still primarily tasked with. Providing facilities and not doing the programming associated. And we have a lot of partners like greater Cleveland athletic association little Tar Heel league out of Princeton organizations like that really help us out on the program inside.

Right,

Jonathan Breeden: right. And I think that's been some of the impetus too. And, you know, the and I'll have to admit the towns in Johnston County. I think I've done an excellent job. I mean, the parks in Clayton are as good as any parks you'll go to I love Shrack and the Smithfield community park with the miracle league there now and the special needs playground they built there in Smithfield, you know, so the towns have done a really good job for their citizens, you know, and I'm happy now that the county is going to start looking at helping.

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And we've had two cycles of open space grants now, where we I don't know the exact number, but it was a little over one and a half million dollars has been distributed throughout the county for those local groups to build capital projects and to purchase land in their particular areas. And I think that's really important for us to do.

And it gets a little technical as far as where that money comes from, but it is a good turnover of. Money this drive through fees and things like that, that really helps out those smaller groups. Yeah. And,

Jonathan Breeden: And the open space funds for people that don't know are largely funded by the developers who have to either provide open space in their developments or pay.

They sort of had them and there was some thought they were trying to use it to help. Prop up the fund balance, which you're not really supposed to do for triple a bond rating stuff. And, I mean, I went and spoke at the commissioners meeting and said, you have this money. I feel like you should do something.

And the greater Cleveland Athletic Association has these needs and the commissioners.

agreed

Jonathan Breeden: And they started to come up with the thing and they said, okay, we're going to do it by a high school district. And you know, we're going to take, let people apply grants. And so I wrote a series of grants for GCA.

There used to be dirt with big holes in it. And that was a big help for GCAA and the next rounds, they We use the greater company association, which I'm the secretary of, we use the money to do. We did the lighting all the underground lighting had gone back to when it was a school 30 years ago and was not safe with some of the power boxes and stuff.

So, so it's been a really. Great thing for this year we just did we just had the fields leveled and we're getting some new dugouts at greater Cleveland Association, which plays in the fields right behind the old Cleveland school across from the Cleveland fire department. So I've seen what your work and the commissioners and the open space funds have done for the children that play at GCAA.

And it's been tremendous. I want to thank you for

And we use that grants coordinator position to leverage funds throughout the County. we have brought in approximately $3,000,000 through grants. And we're working on some different projects. One of the things that we've done most recently was the master plan for. The new property that's at Cleveland and the old property, because we figured if we're doing the new property, we need to look at the old property too, and make sure we're not duplicating services from one to the other.

And also make sure that when we get through, we've got something that's really nice. One of the things I have to remind people all the time, because, you know, a lot of the folks around here are a little bit old school and they've been around for a long time and they remember how parks used to be done.

We like to have that master plan in place, so if even ten years from now, I'm not here, or the people who did the plan are not here, it's still in place. And it's organic enough so it can change. With technology, but it's solid enough that you can still build those items that you've been promises promising for years and years.

there on cleveland school road across from the fire department and There'll be two, you're going to completely redo the original 13 acres, and then they're going to build a very nice part on the other 80 acres. And then across Palena is another 13 acres that the county has purchased as well. That's also going to be part of this sort of community.

First Wide county Park I know there's been a lot of I've been to a lot of meetings about it. I know you've hosted a lot of meetings about it. And it's, I think it's going to be really nice when it's done, but the question for all of us out here in Cleveland, and the other people in the county, they want to see it done is the master plan.

Adrian O'Neal: field? Well, 50 million is a big number. It's kind of like you, you know, you've always heard the old saying, you eat it, you do it like you eat an elephant one piece at a time.

And that's why when we did the planning on that, we did it in phases with the 80 acres you spoke about. As at least three different phases and they're even more splitable than that. So we can, you know, like phase one, we can split into phase one, a phase one, one B. So we look at those and we try to position them around the type of grants we can apply for.

Um, we, one of our, two of our. So, big sources are Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, which is a statewide grant, and then Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is a national grant. We did receive funding from both of those when we purchased the property, so that means that they liked our idea when we came up with it, with that being a park.

So it's very important that you come to those community meetings and make sure you get your two cents in about how you want this park to look. Because until something is actually on the ground, you still have a chance to change what's going to be in there and make sure that we're Doing things that are up to date because there are sometimes when athletic things that people do in athletics or in recreation kind of go out of style or just are not used as much.

And so we're always updating as money is, comes available. When we can,

Jonathan Breeden: right. And the one thing I think that the people listening to the podcast would like to know is the new master plan actually has stuff for adults on it. You know, right now, everything out here has largely been the greater Cleveland Athletic Association, which provides you know, team sports for Basketball, baseball, softball, soccer, and volleyball for about 000 children every year, but it's only for children.

. There's. I think there's a dog park, like, it's really going to be more than just, yes, it's going to be some soccer fields and some baseball fields for the youth that, that are, you know, desperately needed in this area, but there's going to be stuff for everybody and we don't really have anything for everybody right now, at least not.

In Cleveland or McGee's Crossroads the towns do, but not the county.

We have open fields that you can use for many different uses. I mean just to go lay out and read a book or meditate. We have a amphitheater that will go in there. We do have a dog park. Like you said, the soccer fields soccer fields, I like to call them general purpose fields because they can be used for football, soccer, different things.

And we have a small fishing pond that will go in the first three items that'll go in over there is a pickleball court. A small retention slash fishing pond and a back outdoor basketball court. And uh, those will also be accompanied by the underground work or the utility work and kind of the base for the roads and things like that, because you kind of have to get that out of the way.

You don't want to be tearing it up every time you come in and out. So those are kind of our first about what I call phase one a, and that's what the. Really the first 3 million is going to pay for in that part.

Adrian O'Neal: 12 months. Well, with our parks, recreation, trust fund grant.

We have to be started within, well actually we have to be finished within three years. So we're looking at those three items and some of the underground work being finished within three years, and we hope that we're adding funding through grants all along the way because it's a whole lot cheaper to keep a contractor out there than it is to bring them, let them come in, do a little work, and then leave and come

Jonathan Breeden: back.

So when did you get the grant? I mean, I know we've been, this project's been, You know, long work. I was one of the, I was on the very first call with the county manager, Rick Hester to the lady who owned the land, who was looking at maybe donating some of the land to the county and, you know, what that might look like or selling the land to the county.

Adrian O'Neal: we got notification that we received the grant in September, if I'm not mistaken. And what we have to do is wait for paperwork to come in, just like anything else. The actual contract that goes with the grant came in. In November and in the last commissioner's meeting in November, they voted to accept the grant.

I know you don't have a vote on that, but if they talk to you about that,

Adrian O'Neal: you know, that's what happens in Wake County and that's how they have done their parks funding for many years now and they've been very successful. Bonds for the most part for parks are very successful throughout the state of North Carolina.

This last election cycle there was one that, that did not go through. Bonds are always dependent upon the communication that's done beforehand. I will say that our commissioners are very supportive of parks. They have been very supportive of the park since I've been here. And I think at some point there will be a need for the bond.

I'm not sure it'll happen during this election cycle, but if it did happen this election cycle, we could definitely use it. Right.

Jonathan Breeden: All right. Well, that's cool. That's cool. We'll make sure we ask them what they think of what they think of the pods. You know, when they're on the podcast in the next few weeks coming up and that'll be interesting.

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Jonathan Breeden: I mean, some other things we talked about the Cleveland park talk a little bit about the mountains to the sea trail, what it is, where it is, you know, how it impacts Johnston County.

I don't, I think a lot of people are unaware

The East Coast Greenway is a national trail. It goes from Maine to Florida. The Mountains to Sea Trail is a state trail. It goes from the mountains of North Carolina Murphy to Manteo. And both of those are very legitimate trails, long hike trails or Short day hike trails and we are one of the last counties for the mountains to see trail to be completed and probably one of the hardest counties because of the amount of development that's going on in Johnston County right now But we've done a feasibility study The first one was from Clayton to Smithfield and we've got that in the books now It provided us three different routes that we could take As far as purchasing land and getting easements and building trails.

Jonathan Breeden: what I always thought. It kind of follows the noose river where

Adrian O'Neal: it can, where it can.

Right. Okay. And the. Mountains of C Trail and East Coast Greenway actually parallel each other from the county, western county line all the way down to Four Oaks. Okay. Once they get to Four Oaks, they split. Okay. And the Mountains of C Trail goes. Towards the coast and then the East Coast Greenway goes towards Fayetteville and down towards South Carolina.

Okay. And Right now we're in the probably about the middle of doing the feasibility study from Smithfield to the Harnett County line Okay, so we've got a lot of our partners in there Giving us their viewpoint and we've got DOT. We've got the railroad, all the players in the game, you might say making sure that we're not putting something on a plan that will not work in the future.

And we put a new segment on the map. Until we get down to what we think is the most feasible one or two routes that are available. And once that's done, and we get that approved by the Board of Commissioners, if that's what they decide to do, then it helps us out later on when DOT comes in. If they're building a new road, then they have to consider that plan.

Because it is a documented plan. And if it coincides with their construction of the road, then the OT actually will build that part of the trail. Oh,

Jonathan Breeden: that's nice. Okay. Well, and the DOT is doing a ton of construction here in Johnson County. I mean, it's unbelievable. Are there any other, so you're working on a.

I guess you're working on a Parks and Rec master plan for the entire county.

Because we have to have a Parks and Rec master plan for most of these grants we apply. And once that plan gets to be about 10 years old, Then they say, okay, you don't have a master plan anymore. You've got an old master plan. That's not up to date. So we have to constantly update this plan at least every five years.

So, you know, what's happening. Yeah,

Jonathan Breeden: well, I guess a question I always am asked, and I've asked this question a million times, and I kind of know the answer, but. You know, we have all these schools and some schools are used by the parks and recs and the town parks and recs Selma has a tremendous relationship between the school and their parks and rec department.

And in other places. The communities can't really use the schools. Can you explain how community groups either do or do not get access to the schools and why there can't, there doesn't seem to be some sort of universal policy that would allow people to use these schools and fields that the taxpayers have already paid for.

That there's really nobody there other than the administration and we are working with Johnston County schools to look at the opportunities that are available and try to do something a little different. Now there may be some schools that just don't work in it. And I think if you really look at the high schools, they are not going to work because of the fact that they have so much programming that goes on throughout the year.

And there is some of those being used now. I would encourage any of those groups that are not being able to use their local field to really. communicate with the school system because most of the time what we find is that community there's a communication gap there and once that communication gap is kind of pushed through that there's a whole resource that opens up to them.

So you know that's one of the big things but I hope in the future. Overall in the county, we can do something that will help the schools out and help the, our partner groups out because there's a, you're right. There's a huge amount of money that's spent on these schools when they're built in the landscaping and the fields and things like that.

Jonathan Breeden: Well, and we ask everybody that comes here as we start to wind down this episode of the best of johnson county podcast I know you live in wayne county, but you and you work for the state parks department for a long time What do you you've been here? four or five years working now doing a tremendous job.

The citizens of this county owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude. I know you're not looking for it, but I just don't think people understand how much you've done for this community, the whole county, greater Cleveland Athletic Association and everything else. What have you found that you love about Johnston

Adrian O'Neal: County?

Well, Johnston County is really a homespun area when you start looking at it, regardless of where you move from or who moves in, there's just a community spirit in Johnston County and it, filters down from local government. All the way I really enjoy working for the county. It's been a great work relationship.

Jonathan Breeden: area. Yeah. Well, what is you excited about, Johnson County and the parks and what your department is doing over the next couple of years that we talked about the Cleveland community park, but what else might have you

Adrian O'Neal: excited?

The support. We have great support from our county commissioners. We have great support from the community. We have great potential for growth in our park system. You know, we kind of get a little bit disheartened sometimes when you start doing these trails or you start doing these parks because you see roadblocks that come up, but it seems like a lot of times those roadblocks are just temporary in Johnston County.

Harnessed to a desk anymore. Like maybe you and I were when they were young in our careers and it's it's. It's very interesting to see that, and it just opens up a whole new realm of support.

Jonathan Breeden: Right, there's no doubt. It's going to be interesting over the next few years. You know, now that this group of commissioners has really made, I mean, they're making a concerted effort.

A lot of our support groups like the Friends of the Mountains of Sea, the East Coast Greenway Coalition, both of them have funding from the state legislature. So that was a big boom this year. And we also have a local group in Johnston County, Friends of Johnston County Parks and Open Space. They cover not only the parks, but they cover the arts in the county, right?

They do. They're a great group. Great group. They're growing by leaps and bounds. You know, I looked got a sticker with the date on it, and they've been around for about three years now. And you know, they've got a board in place. They're a 5 0 1 C3 and they're fixing to start a membership drive.

And so we've got a lot going on with it

Jonathan Breeden: as well. Well, if any of the citizens out there that listen to this podcast or watch it on YouTube or whatever, wanted to get in touch with you or your office, what's the best way to do

And that also is a guide to, if you're new in the county, it's a guide to where maybe you're. Children, or you want to play sports because it kind of directs you based on your address to the closest sports partner that we have in the county. Oh,

Jonathan Breeden: that's awesome. And there are a lot of great sports partners and I've been extremely involved with the greater Cleveland Athletic Association.

And there's tons of them where there's football with the Civitans and Clayton and there's Archer's Lodge and Four Oaks and Benson. I mean, everybody. The micro's got a league McGee's Crossroads Athletic Association. There are tons. So if you have a child that would like to be involved in youth sports, there, there is definitely a place for him or her to play in Johnston County with these largely these nonprofits that have sprung up to provide services for these kids.

And you might want to see what their answer is. So until next time I'm Jonathan Breeden. Thanks for listening.

That's the end of today's episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.

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