Dear Friends of the James River Park –

The City’s budget is approved, and we are happy to report that the proposed improvements to the JRPS operations budget and the capital projects in the Park have been approved. This means that soon we will see additional JRPS Operations, Trails, and Park Ranger staff. It also means that Mayo Island can move forward, and work can begin on the Pump House roof in the future. We are working on understanding the timeline of those bigger projects so that we can share them with you all.

We want to thank Mayor Avula, Richmond City Council, and Richmond’s Parks and Rec leadership team for making these investments in the JRPS. We know the City has a lot of priorities, and we are grateful to see these improvements coming to the Park. I look forward to a walk in Mayo Island Park by the end of next year!

We also just passed our organizational budget for next year at our Board meeting this week. We will raise and spend a little over $800k for normal organizational operations, direct support to daily Park work, natural resource management support, and Park projects. We have a good portion of our budget that is currently unassigned so that we can be flexible with how we approach the new year. We are waiting to see the final results of our Natural Resources Management Plan before we make any major decisions. Our Board of Directors will assign those funds to projects during our next fiscal year.

If you are at River Rock this weekend, stop by and say hello. We will have a table over by the Bateau Man statue. We are raffling off some tickets to the “Along the James” James Taylor concert, and we are happy to chat about the different projects happening in the Park.

See you out there- Josh