This year, budget cuts force the parks department to reduce Monday through Thursday summer hours from 10:00 a.m. – 8:00 p.m. to 12:00 – 5:00 p.m. Now, the hours have been revised to make sure parents have the option of using the parks in the morning, before the heat of the day reaches its peak.
Now, park hours will alternate between 2:00 – 8:00 p.m. and 10:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. Each park will still be closed one day per week.
Tomorrow, as temperatures again climb toward the triple digit mark, the water will be shut off at Hayes Park, on North Lincoln Street near Clarendon. On Thursday, the county’s third spray park — Lyon Village Park — will go dry.
“Our FY2011 budget cuts included closing each spray park one day a week between Memorial Day and Labor Day,” Parks Department spokesperson Susan Kalish said in an email. “The good news is that there are at least two spraygrounds open in the County on any given day.”
The teen program office of the Arlington parks department is looking for finance gurus who can explain to middle school-aged teens the importance of being smart with money.
Volunteers would make a presentation during a half day, teen-focused money workshop on July 15.
The cracks, which developed over the winter, were causing safety concerns on three of the six tennis courts and on the basketball courts. The work is expected to wrap up by the end of the month, a Parks Department spokesperson says.
Armed Robbery Suspect Arrested — A man who’s suspected in three armed robberies in Arlington, and at least 15 throughout Northern Virginia, has been apprehended. Eugene Athony Thomas, 24, was arrested in Fairfax County on Monday after a joint investigation by Fairfax and Arlington County police. More from the Falls Church News-Press.
Parks Dept. Creating “Arlingtonopoly” Game — The county’s parks and recreation department is creating a “Monopoly” knock-off called “Arlingtonopoly.” Local landmarks and businesses (who fork over several hundred dollars) will substitute for Boardwalk, Park Place and rest of the original board game’s familiar properties. More from the Sun Gazette.
There are 1,050 ornamental cherry trees lining county streets, according to Arlington urban forester Richard Miller. And that number doesn’t include cherry trees that are planted in parking lots, in parks or on private property.
The trees planted in Arlington include the Yoshino, Okame and Kwanzan varieties. The Yoshino Cherry is the dominant variety around the Tidal Basin, where the National Park Service has just announced that blossoms have reached full bloom.
On Saturday morning more than 100 anglers showed up at Bon Air Park, not far from the high-rises of Ballston, for the beginning of Arlington County’s trout season. From 9:00 a.m. to noon, the kids 15 and under has free reign of the prime fishing spots along Four Mile Run, without adult competition.
Arlington’s trout season lasts about six weeks, effectively ending when all the trout have been caught. Trout cannot naturally survive in Four Mile Run due to the lack of cool, shady spots during the summer, so the county parks and recreation department contracts with a fish hatchery in West Virginia to stock the stream from Barcroft Park to Bon Air Park every third weekend in March. An annual Four Mile Run stream clean-up, every second weekend in March, is timed to coincide with the beginning of trout fishing season.
