Doleshel Park opens Feb. 22

MARYSVILLE — When Doleshel Park finally opens on Saturday, Feb. 22, it will represent the culmination of three years of work by both city of Marysville employees and community volunteers, notably the local stakes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

By Kirk Boxleitner • February 15, 2014 10:43 pm
Lynn Francis was among the volunteers who spruced up the Doleshel Park
Lynn Francis was among the volunteers who spruced up the Doleshel Park

MARYSVILLE — When Doleshel Park finally opens on Saturday, Feb. 22, it will represent the culmination of three years of work by both city of Marysville employees and community volunteers, notably the local stakes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

City of Marysville Parks and Recreation Director Jim Ballew recalled how, back in 2005, the city used a $511,300 grant from the Snohomish County Conservation Futures Fund to purchase the site of the 6.3-acre park, located just east of Kellogg Marsh Elementary on 67th Avenue, from the Doleshel Christmas tree farm, for which the new park has been named.

“One of our former City Council members, Norma Jean Dierk, wrote that grant application,” Ballew said. “It’s to her credit that we’ll be able to enjoy this new oasis of passive recreation.”

Ballew also extended credit to the hundreds of members of the Marysville community and the local LDS church, who worked to refurbish the site over the course of three years’ worth of annual National Days of Service and Remembrance.

“We simply would not have been able to do this without the coordination and efforts of the church,” Ballew said.

Marysville Mayor Pro Tem and City Council member Jeff Vaughan and his wife Deanna are among the members of the local LDS Church who helped trim tree limbs to provide greater safety, visibility and aesthetic appeal to the property, just as employees of the city of Marysville Parks and Recreation Department took out a number of other trees, and fed them into their wood-chipper to create mulch for the park’s trails.

“This view wasn’t available before, because there was no bridge and the blackberry bushes had grown over the water,” Jeff Vaughan said. “If you took a picture of this, people would think you were in the Cascades, but it’s right here in Marysville, and it’s beautiful.”

“The difference is incredible,” said Deanna Vaughan, who serves as a local public relations coordinator for the church. “When we first came here, the weeds were so thick and tall, and the blackberries were so out of control, that my jeans actually ripped just trying to walk down to the stream. To look at it now, and see these kids running through the trees, is amazing.”

The grand opening will officially kick off at 10 a.m. on Feb. 22, at 9028 67th Ave. NE, and the first 250 attendees will receive wildflower seed packets that they will be able to plant at the park, at its new wildflower meadow, during the month of May.