The City of Ripon is working on a policy for accepting donations to exiting city parks.

Over the years, staff has received more and more interest from the public on making donations or improvements to those parks.

“Any time the City received a request, we would evaluate each request (donations or improvements) to the existing park and make a determination on how best to process this on a case by case basis,” said Recreation Director Kye Stevens at Tuesday’s Ripon City Council meeting.

This led to talks regarding formalizing a policy in order to be consistent.

Stevens said that the plan in place would need to be consistent and beneficial to the park site.

Included would be an application process calling for staff evaluation and possibly input from the department heads.

“We would use the process similar to special events,” he said.

Stevens, in his staff report, noted that a donation offer can be as simple as adding a bench or a more substantial improvement that could result in impacting other park amenities/uses or adjacent neighbors.

One of example of that is if a resident was interested in donating a sand volleyball court complex at a neighborhood park such as Harvest Park.

“This improvement would result in less grass area that would be available for teams to practice soccer or flag football,” Stevens said.

He pointed out that any structural add-ons to the park would need to get the OK from the Planning Commission.

“If it’s not in the best interest (of the park), the City holds the right to decline the donation,” said Stevens.

After discussions with elected leaders, he and his staff will continue to work on the policy and will look at adding an appeals process.