A highlight is the completed Gateway Park, which has a detention pond that is also used for fishing. The development would include 3 acres of wetland on the east bank. If the creek initiative passes, the 7.75 percent sales tax rate would rise to 8 percent but would drop to 7.5 percent when The Ballpark in Arlington is paid off, which is expected to happen in 2001. The Gateway Park detention pond holds excess rainwater, delaying its flow downstream. The project aims to control floods through creek widening, removal of buildings andconstruction of a series of detention ponds.
Gateway Park is complete.
Consultants recommend completing Vandergriff Park first, which would take three to five years. After that, they suggest conducting public hearings to decide the order of development. Members of the Johnson Creek 2000 committee say this section is important because it will have a hiking and biking trail and will preserve an environmental area and wetland. Members of Concerned Taxpayers of Arlington say the city does not maintain the ponds it has, including the one at Gateway Park, which has moss, litter and dead fish. With its dentention pond and hiking and biking trail, it is an example of what the Johnson Creek project could create along the creek throughout the city.