Green's Park Will Staff Lifeguards Again This Summer

Green’s Park has been in the spotlight of .

For months the Council has debated cutting lifeguards from , however at the budget meeting on April 19, the Council voted 4-2 in favor of keeping the lifeguards. Councilmen Michael Toth and Doug Hobbs voted against staffing lifeguards while member Shauna Brown was not in attendance at the meeting.

“They felt dollar wise it wasn’t significant enough to cut,” said Paul Zelenak, Lake Orion Village manager, of the majority vote.

Green’s Park, which is located on the lakefront at 100 S. Park Blvd. in Lake Orion, staffs lifeguards in the summer to oversee residents swimming at the park. A Green's Park survey was conducted this year asking residents if they would rather have no fee to enter the park and have no lifeguard onsite, or keep the lifeguards along with the previously inflated rates to enter the park.

Zelenak noted that the results of the survey were close to even, with a little more than 50 percent saying they would prefer to keep the lifeguards.

The Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee voted on Tuesday night 5-1 in favor of keeping park passes at the same rates as they were last year: $25 for village residents, $50 for township residents and $75 for nonresidents.

Zelenak said that the park passes were raised in 2011, a move not everyone was pleased with, though the increase did help offset costs of the lifeguards and park maintenance. The final decision for the park pass prices will go to the Village Council at an upcoming board meeting.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee also began brainstorming ways to better market the park, hoping to see traffic increase this year. Zelenak noted that Stan Ford, who works at the park in the summer and staffs lifeguards, believes that though there might not have been as many annual passes purchased, the total attendance in the park increased last year. Zelenak said that some attendees opt for the day passes, which cost $5 for a family of four people.

Green’s Park is currently open to the public. Passes to the park will be available at in the next few weeks and will be required for entering the park Memorial Day through Labor Day, said Zelenak.