County Parks to approve Comprehensive Plan

NEWPORT — Pend Oreille County Parks and Recreation is soon to approve its next Comprehensive Plan, a five-year plan guiding the sustainable development and improvement of the county’s parks and recreation system through 2030.

For this Comprehensive Plan, Parks has revised the goals identified in its previous Comprehensive Plan to make them more achievable, Parks director Mike Kirkwood said. With most of its revenue coming from timber harvesting, which is subject to market fluctuations, Parks did not have enough funding to achieve many of its goals within the last five years. And only about one full-time equivalent of Parks staff are paid, including Kirkwood as director and a couple parttime seasonal workers.