John Allen, director of Parks and Rec for Monroe County, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
Halloween and the holiday season are coming up.
Allen said, “Halloween time is it’s not all about Fantasy Fest. Everybody loves Fantasy Fest, but we got a lot more coming on. We have the Big Pine haunted houses this weekend. If you haven’t been to that, it’s a lot of fun. The Rotary helps put that on, and it’s Friday, Saturday and Sunday. And we also have a Trunk or Treat on Saturday at the Big Pine Community Park. So that’s a fantastic event. If you haven’t been to it, please, please, try to come to that. You talk about Christmas, we’ve got some Holiday Tree Lighting. We’ve got a new tree that’s going to go in Big Pine, and that’s going to be November 21 and then the one in Key Largo that they’ve been doing up there is November 22, so those are always fun times too.
There’s also pickleball.
Allen said, “It is tournament after tournament after tournament. We’ve got, I think it starts October 25th, 26th, we have one at Higgs Beach, and we’ve got one November 1, December 13, a pickleball tournament, and then a few up in Key Largo as well, November 22 and December 6 and December 13. So pickleball just continues to grow. Fun sport. I grew up playing tennis, but they got me out there playing pickleball now too. So it’s a lot of fun, a fun sport, and anybody can play. That’s the great thing, not to take away from tennis. I still get out there and hit that ball too. But lot of fun. We’ve got a lot of races coming up. We’ve got Tunnel to Towers race in Big Pine. We’ve got the half marathon this weekend, and disc golf tournaments, pole vault in Paradise, and don’t forget our furry friends, we’ve got the parade of paws at Higgs beach coming too.”
Pickleball courts are popping up everywhere.
Allen said, “It’s just a growing sport. We built 10 in Key Largo recently. We built three more in Big Pine and then we have 12 that we renovated in Higgs beach about a year ago. So just a fun sport. And Bay Point, we just resurfaced the courts there to have four pickleball and one tennis there. All these courts, and there’s still a lot of players still waiting when you want to play.
Is transferring Higgs Beach to the city of Key West still on the table?
Allen said, “We’ve had some great initial conversations with them and we’re kind of just giving information back and forth to see how and if we can make this work. So continuing conversations, and we’ll see where that goes. But it’s a beautiful park and it’s a great amenity to the city and to the county. We work well with the city on a lot of different things. We coordinate the beach and they coordinate the streets. So it’s a lot that we do together, and we’ll continue to work together and see where this goes.”
There are also a lot of free programs.
Allen explained, “We have Tai Chi at Big Pine. Up in Plantation Key, the JOY program, just older youth. They do a lot of amazing events, our activities for our just older youth and great opportunities there. They also, my staff, does a great job doing other programs up there. Bernstein, we have Powell. We’ve got the Cub Scouts. We’ve got Creo to English classes. We also have English classes at the Big Pine AARP has some programs, quilting and all that at Winn Dixie and the Winn Dixie Big Pine community park. And they do English classes for Spanish there. So a lot of great opportunities. We’d love to have the community join us.”
There are a number of upcoming projects.
Allen said, “From resurfacing the courts to Tiki huts for shade, new playground equipment. Rowells is going through construction right now. Bernstein will be going through construction. The pirate ship at the Jacobs aquatic will get replaced this year, and a new skate park at Big Pine. We just appreciate all the community involvement and coming out to our parks and enjoy it. Of course, I thank my staff for the always being out there, getting them in the condition that they are in, so the kids can play and enjoy and compete.”
For more information, click here: https://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/233/Parks-Beaches