West End Connection Asks City For Renovations With Popularity Growing

The non-profit West End Connection wants Cookeville to work with the organization on improvements to West End Park and its policies.

Changes include more security and public signage posted throughout the park. West End Connection President Natalie Okorji said they would like to see signs posted alerting visitors that the park does employ security cameras. Okorji said many more people are using the park in recent years causing inconvenience to those who live around the park.

“Mainly the traffic as well as usable of the amenities of the park within the basketball court and the playground equipment,” Okorji said. “It’s extremely hard to get into the park to utilize any of the amenities because of the traffic.”

Okorji said the group would also like a better system to coordinate usage of the park, including reservations to make sure groups are better coordinated.

Okorji said West End Connect understands the limited parking, however, parking in front of mailboxes has caused undelivered mail. Okorji said rules regarding the use of the basketball court should also be posted so that more people can participate.

“The majority of folks do come down to play basketball however whenever there are basketball tournaments going on, on the court, it’s being used as full court,” Okorji said. “When initially, me myself growing up at that park, we always played half court.”

Okorji said that West End Connection would also like to see more patrolling around the park.

“Just to be able to have more precaution in two different parties that are going on in the park within the hours of the park,” Okorji said.

Okorji said they would like to meet with city officials in order to work together to enact the changes citizens would like to see.