 This is our last ribbon-cutting of the year and we like to say the best for last. Right Councilman Davis? My name is Henry Simons I'm the Assistant City Manager of Operations of course for the City of Columbia and we would like to welcome you and thank you of course for your presence on today as we celebrate the grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony of the revalidation of Hyatt Park. Thank you to our Mayor Steve Benjamin who sends his regards this afternoon as he is currently traveling this week. He certainly desired to be here but unfortunately he could not want to thank him in his absence. Also want to thank Councilman Sam Davis of course who represents District 1 and has represented District 1 over 20 plus years. Thank you so much Councilman Davis. We also have Councilman Brennan with us today and Councilman Duvall. Thank you all so much for your presence on today. We also have our Chief, Chief Holbrook and Deputy Chief Maron Kelly present with us today. Thank them so much for their support and we also have of course our City Manager Teresa Wilson here with us. I want to thank Ms. Wilson for her continued leadership and guidance on our initiatives in Parks and Recreation. She has been continuously supportive of our efforts so we're grateful for her presence on today. Thank you for you all today. It is a beautiful day. It's a fitting day for a ribbon-cutting ceremony. Today is a great day. Today is a great day for the City of Columbia specifically for the citizens of North Columbia. The work you see all around you is a result of strong city leadership, determination, citizen support and the unwavering leadership of Councilman Sam Davis who has always been passionate about Hyatt Park. Our Mayor and Collective Council members, some who are not present today, have been instrumental in this project becoming a reality in this community. In 2017, the Parks and Recreation Department collaborated with the community and the steering committee on a master plan to revitalize Hyatt Park. And today, elements of the master plan are now a reality. And we are overjoyed at what has been accomplished. Today, we now have a new daylighted stream, community green space, which you see behind you, playgrounds, multiple walkways, boardwalks, a provision that we'll talk about as we're standing up under in just a moment, terrace seating where some of you are sitting on now, splash pad that's actually in front of you. We'll talk a little bit about that here in just a moment. Metal sculpture garden, outdoor classroom space and getaway entry areas. The new stream is really a central component of the park. Actually, 1155 square feet of pipe was removed to daylight the stream and unnamed tributary of the Smith Ranch to run through the park once again. A few sections of the pipe were reclaimed as tunnels that pass through the play mongols in the metal. The metal, of course, to your right and some of the piping you see how we have designed that as we took it out of the ground for our young people to play on. So that'll be a process of how we tell the story of the site. The restoration will improve water quality, reduce velocity and impact of urban runoff downstream, enhance habitat diversity and provide an outdoor learning lab illustrating the best management practices of urban streams and stormwater management. A good illustration of this is found in how we were able to converse the existing stream with the new daylighted stream and added an engineering beaver dam which provides an additional education component to the outdoors. New playground components were added to to include the climbing globe that you see directly behind you, hill slides which you see behind you as well, and in glassy play mongols. The splash pad which is again here in front of you we're going to display that once we're done is actually located of course between this pavilion and a terrace seating there. So it'll it'll be operated when the actual pavilion is not being used. We'll have a splash pad right in front of you so the kids can can utilize and we're not done yet. There's a lot more work to be done. Future phases of Hyatt Park will include educational signage, a revitalized baseball field, new concessions in restrooms, expanding walking paths, perimeter fencing, outdoor gym, additional lighting and additional public art and sight amenities. So we are thankful for all the work that has been done and we'll come back shortly with some more acknowledgements but at this time again thank you for your presence today and I'll ask Councilman Sam Davis to provide some remarks at this time. Councilman. Good afternoon. If you're familiar with Hyatt Park, this particular area of North Columbia, then you used to hearing such phrases as well. It's about time. Where's the money? I say all that to say this. It's been a long journey but a pleasant one because it brought out the best and everybody who expresses and have a deep-seated commitment and love for this property and it wasn't easy for a number of reasons and but it's an eye opener for those who appreciate surprises. If you're familiar with Hyatt Park then you recall just a small spot over here near the sidewalks and a small little wooden rickety bridge walking bridge about this long I believe but look at it now. You see water running two weeks ago Lyman. Where's Lyman? So Lyman gave the most informative and lovely explanation of this park. Not everyone knew that that much water was under these grounds. Windermere Springs a couple of blocks away has water. A number of neighborhoods has water but what staff and their creativity did was to bring out the best of this location. It has something for everybody for the little ones for the animals for people who just love the outdoors and it's represented of the commitment that came out of the hot heated discussions we've had over the years to make this day possible. I think there were some folks who thought that we would not be here today celebrating this treasure but it's here now and as Henry indicated there's more to come. The one thing that's common about the experience here is that every neighborhood you go through Columbia every neighborhood takes ownership of the park that's most contiguous to where they live and that was no different than Hyatt Park and I hope that we that we grow to love and protect this area. Somebody left it for for us. We and you need to leave it for the for the children who they've thought about with some of the age-appropriate features for them so that that says that we're in this for the long haul it's worth your tax dollars and I don't have any notes on this that I don't worry about but I really want to thank Park staff with Henry and everybody. They also had listening sessions and I gave them credit they had a lot of they were some brave folks to sit in the rooms and hear what the neighborhoods say said they wanted or what they would like to see and I hope you agree and appreciate the fact that that they delivered and we've done a lot of these this year but I'm going to say this is the best so far but again because there's something for everybody it represents some of the feedback that they were getting over the years over the long haul because it's been a long discussion and and a long journey to get to this point and so green space loves those who appreciate it you can go anywhere in this country and you can tell if there's a deep-seated honest appreciation and love for green space or neglect and ignoring what green space can become and so I'm looking forward to it that lady I sleep with looks forward to it Adriana my wife but we appreciate the fact that you appreciate what staff has done and for those of you who really who live in Hyatt Park I think you know what I'm talking about because there were times when you wanted to come into the park and you sort of kind of changed your mind for a number of reasons perceptions included but look around now and see what we have although neighborhoods that are most contiguous to parks take ownership and you know sort of it's for everybody it's for everybody the folks from Greenview Earl will it Elmwood so we thank you for coming and hope that you're not disappointed with the final product and stay in it for the long haul because there's more to come and we've got to take care of this space we've got to treat it as if it's ours individually and that then will be reflected in the love and the appreciation that you show over a period of time thank you hey everybody my name is Ty Zeigler I'm the president of Hyatt Park Kenan Terrace Neighborhood Association thank you Mr. Thomas for having us out today I appreciate y'all giving us the chance to make some remarks you know when I when I moved this neighborhood a few years ago I one thing that really drew me to this area was the unique character of it the culture it already has you know a lot of neighborhoods today kind of all look the same they're built at the same time but this neighborhood has a unique character that you can see has grown up over time you know when the city came to us to talk about redeveloping Hyatt Park it's something that our neighborhood's been asking for for many years as Sam alluded to and you know what we were most appreciative of was that the city came and listened and didn't just you know redevelop the park to make it something that the city thought it should be that that it should look like other parks in the city they asked us what the park should be so I think this is great that we have the time here today to look around and see the changes that have been made so that we know exactly or we can see the expression that that you know we gave to the city about what we wanted the park to be what we wanted Hyatt Park to be as a community and I think that they've done a fantastic job of actually redeveloping the park in our image and making it something that we can all be proud of as a community and something that can add to the unique culture that we have here and the character that our neighborhood already has I just briefly want to thank some folks that have you know participated in all this and you know City Council for one thank you all so much for committing the funds and and putting the effort into this project Mr. Simons, Ms. Wilson, thank you all for your work for getting this project done. Councilman Davis, I don't know what else to say other than thank you from the bottom of our heart we have been badgering about you about this project for years I appreciate your hard work so much because not only has Councilman Davis you know listened to our concerns about this park and you know took all those meetings with us and brought us the city officials but he advocated on our behalf and I think without him this project would have gotten done so thank you so much Councilman Davis you really appreciate it. I also want to thank Todd Martin Todd's the park architect and you know Todd had some of those meetings with us and listened to our ideas took a million ideas and made it into something beautiful and something that we can all be proud of so I really appreciate all the work he gave us Todd that's we really do appreciate that and and lastly I want to thank some of my neighbors who you know I've only been involved in the neighborhood leadership for about three years but some of our folks have been around for a very long time and have been advocating for this park for longer than I've even lived in Columbia actually so Lyman Munson, Janie Nelson can you stand so we can recognize y'all these guys Lyman and Janie do so much for our community they are they're such great leaders and they have been advocating for this park for a long long time so I thank y'all so much for the work y'all have done and the efforts I've put into this I really appreciate y'all's hard work and finally I think I saw Christy Savage here earlier is Christy Savage here still to my left oh way back there thank you so much Christy Christy is the director of the Eau Claire community council and she's been right there with us advocating for this project so thank y'all for having us thank you mr. Simons for having us here hope to see y'all around the park thank you thank you so much Ty I also want to acknowledge councilwoman elect Tina Herbert who will be serving you starting in 2022 which is here thank you miss Herbert for your presence on on today look forward to working with you before we ask miss Wilson to come with closing remarks we want to take a just a just a brief moment to acknowledge the late Mary G Thurman who was our recreation coordinator here at Hyatt Park she served us for several years actually from 2013 to early 2021 and Mary was special to this community she she loved their seniors she loved their staff her staff was her her life her family not only did she impact her team but she impacted those of you in the community and Ty and along with our community members wanted to find a way to acknowledge her acknowledge her work and the time that she spent here at Hyatt Park so collectively we decided to name the provision that we're standing under the Mary G Thurman provision our staff is here with us I know they miss her miss her dearly and that we appreciate the hard work and the commitment and the dedication that you put in in this park every single day you impact our children our adults anybody that come into Hyatt Park you're making an impact so so thank you very much for your continued work now at this time we do have uh some of Mary's family here i'm going to ask her sister who is present with us today she's going to come and she's going to make some some remarks please help me welcome miss Eula Duncan thank god for this opportunity to see another day and to see all of you here councilman and as i said mr simons and all of you here all of you here today um this is such an honor you know just to be here to be a part of to see what you all are doing for my sister what you have done it was quite a little emotional when i came here because uh kenya he had called me and made my family a part of this celebration and i want to thank him because he was so supportive and just being there for me and i don't see kenya but i want to thank him sometimes i don't know where to start i was a little emotional i had a couple of things written down to say because Mary as a brother simons said i don't want to be redundant but she loved you all she loved the people here and i know they loved her because when she transitioned i received for the first couple of weeks one call from my landline to my telephone from my landlord to my telephone and i know my brother uh robert he received a lot of calls as well and i tried to answer every call i mean she is just a very special person who loved what she did she would come to greenville she said i'm bringing my seniors to greenville j you want to come back and um and i would meet her with her seniors and and um and she would um do special projects with the seniors where i'm going to the museum bring a couple of the nieces and nephews by i got some tickets uh now i had the opportunity to see my angelo because of Mary so many things that that took place here in columbia and she would always invite me to be a part of it oh she was um uh a very special person and she was very dear to us because Thanksgiving past and Mary was always there she would say uh okay j i'm on 418 do you need anything and she would bring the ham and the y'all help me other yeah the wings and i'm gonna tell you this Thanksgiving just passed we missed her so much because she would always say i got to take care of my peoples down here and once you finish she would sometimes she would be so tired but she would come and make that ham for us let me tell you this year we didn't have the ham and it was missed and then after the uh the Thanksgiving meal she would go to the the keyboard and we would sing ourselves happy i'm telling you she was truly missed this year missed her so much i could say so much about it there were some other things i knew i wanted to say but i left my little cheat sheet at home and if i had it i probably still missed something so i'm not going to take up a lot of time and just say uh michelle and mr brown oh my goodness she talked about y'all so much she told us so many stories about you you guys and there were people who came into this this uh the center they still call me to this day so i know that people loved her here and i just want to thank you all for loving her i just prayed that if she's on the other side that she can see what's going on i don't know like you know i've heard people say they've been to alert aside came back i don't know but anyways um i she's so deserving of this and thank y'all so much everybody involved who who had a part in this we we we thank you we we we love you for what you're doing here for her and i have my family and on behalf of my family and and uh family who's not legitimate family members but family for mary mary her sister stephanie was her little little sister and every time mary came home many times stephanie would be with her so we feel very dear close to stephanie because she was like a sister i'm gonna um ask her uh her siblings there three of us here her oldest brother robert would you stand robert that's the oldest brother and and the brother after me is the pastor willy t i wouldn't let him come up here but i don't think you want to sermon today so we'd like to say and thank god for um the other uh it was six seven of us we lost mary so it's six of us left but the three of us here we're happy to have them then we have other members of the family we have nephews and great nephews and nieces would y'all stand she loved her nieces and nephews y'all stand every christmas she would come home and she would bring her car would be loaded down with gifts and i don't know how she did it but she she had a gift for everybody and i know those nieces and nephews are gonna miss that this christmas also we have our sister-in-laws here two of them gloria and and janet would you stand or wave your hand or something okay and on behalf of this thurmond family we we thank you so much for what you've done we just can't find the words to say thank you enough thank you thank you and when we pass through we always come through and we stop by we go on to the beach or whatever we stop by here and we will continue to do that because we know that this this will always be a part of mary thank you may god bless all of you thank you so much for your remarks miss duncan very heartfelt and uh we appreciate that very much um just a few acknowledgments before our city manager comes before you again we want to thank our mayor and city council uh for all of their continued support also want to thank the design team which is consists of yours truly todd martin our landscape architect he's our park planner he's our project manager this does a lot of work for us um drew cheatham landscape architect for kenneth b simons and associates is i think is here with us thank you so much for your work on this project philip ellis with robison design engineers they were involved in the project also uh joshua uh robison uh with robison design engineers and we also want to thank the construction team the aos specialty contractors which was the primary contractor uh cj beard project manager for aos also the subcontractors uh kugler construction chasing landscaping esi electric and more importantly um we also want to acknowledge our very own dolly bristo and gloria sy for their work because some of this project was funded through uh cdbg so we appreciate you all support uh with helping us fund this project and also uh we also received funding from the sakalana dehex section 319 grant so special thanks to shea mccarthy janna baxley and amanda lay for their for their work so just want to acknowledge them now this time we'll ask our city manager teresa wilson for uh closing remarks miss wilson when you have a great staff i mean they don't leave anything else for you to say i was um thinking about some of those acknowledgments um but honestly most everything has been said on this beautiful gorgeous day i mean mr davis in the spirit of mary and this north columbia community all i think that's left to be said is won't he do it i mean this is amazing i am so excited and thrilled um after many years of um mr davis and our entire council but mr davis not so kindly many days um not always civil but he he tries but when he wants something done we know we better figure it out year after budget year and so we did that and it was a labor of love in the process when he called me and told me it's time to ride in the streets let's go come on i gotta show you something when we're getting this done when we're getting that done i was like okay it's time for mr davis ride along today and that was okay because i know for sure where his heart has always been and it's with this north columbia community um all of the acknowledgments have been said but i too have grown in this job after 14 years um at the city and watching um our communities grow in different ways knowing that there's still much work to be done in some of our underserved communities um it is great to have advocates and i can truly say that the council members behind me and those not here mere benjamin others are true advocates i know that council want to let her bird because i've grown up with her is a true advocate as well i know her heart personally and her heart for service um but when mr davis wasn't in my ear you better believe miss nelson or mr hopkins i see back there hey mr hopkins um miss sabrina odham and mr lineman months and all of these um pillars in the community were always there as well in our ear so trust and believe that the staff does take these projects seriously and the heart they truly are a labor of love and i'm very proud of our staff and the legacy that they are impacting every day for the children in north columbia um we want to make sure that mr davis um and mrs davis never forget us as well you know his his mouth is going to be in my ear for years to come even if i'm not sharing um time with him at city council meetings and so we thank you mr davis for your sacrifice for the last 20 years we thank you miss davis for sharing him um with us you and the boys it's very much so appreciate it with that we want him to have a memory and you too of the time that he has spent with us and particularly the legacy that has been impacted by him um with this particular park so with that mr davis come up for a moment please sir but you just you just stubborn just a stubborn we hope that you enjoy seeing the fruits of a lot of labor and your vision of compare with this community's vision and we hope that you enjoy the schematic master plan for hyatt park oh man um that is that's the beginning yes sir yes sir i appreciate that yes everybody who's and a little little sweets for everyone as well and the cake how does the cake reach and eat it says thank you for 23 years of service well i guess they say uh you know good things come to those who wait i've never been in waiting for this you know you you do things and you commit to public life because you want to do it it's a part of you expecting nothing in return but i i appreciate this and um that's i i appreciate it let me let me say one thing before i sit down the city manager alluded to it just a second ago um at at some time in the past there was there were warriors out here and two of them in particular one's uh bill manley who's along with us and yesterday when i was driving coming up north main i thought of the other warrior henry hopkins those of you who know this area know the combat between those two on behalf of this area uh and really janey nelson and and um lineman uh you know it it it's all because they express what we what we were talking about you know they love this area and if need be they take your head off so uh we really appreciate them i could not forget henry hopkins yesterday just it was like a light that came on so um this this is their day y'all's day the city's day i'm just happy to be a part of it and i i appreciate the gestures