City seeks feedback on rec center feasibility study

Published 1:30 am Friday, April 3, 2026

Garnering sufficient public feedback is among the Oak Harbor City Council’s top priorities as a feasibility study for a recreation center kicks off.

Council members stressed at a workshop on March 24 that exploring the feasibility of a recreation center with $200,000 the city received from the state legislature in 2024 does not guarantee its construction. What it does ensure is that a hypothetical recreation center suits the council’s means and the community’s needs — as long as those needs are communicated.

“We have done projects of much smaller scale, plans, where we solicited feedback,” Councilmember Bryan Stucky said. “And the feedback has, in my opinion, not been great.”

Accounting and consulting firm BerryDunn contracted with the city to conduct the study, and individuals from the firm as well as subconsultant BRS gave a presentation at the workshop detailing the project’s timeline, explaining methods of public engagement and soliciting the council’s input.

Council members are largely concerned with how well a potential recreation center could fit into the surrounding community. That is, how it could “enhance” local businesses, Stucky said. Mayor Pro Tempore Tara Hizon added that it’s important to “fill in gaps” of service rather than “replicate efforts.” Accessibility and durability were mentioned as priorities as well.

Magi Aguilar, the city’s communications officer and the study’s project manager, characterized a recreation center as a longstanding desire of the community when she introduced the presentation. As such, council members stressed the importance of taking community feedback into consideration. But, as Councilmember James Marrow explained, the demographics of the community can make that challenging.

“We have a transient population of Navy people, and then we have a mass of retirees, and then a whole scope of others, and being able to get an accurate assessment of public opinion is very difficult,” he explained.

Councilmember Chris Wiegenstein pointed out that funding for the project is likely a major concern of the public’s. Feedback, then, needs to be plentiful enough to ensure the recreation center actually fulfills the community’s wishes. Notably, “immersive engagement” is where Rich Neumann, manager of BerryDunn’s parks, recreation and libraries practice, said the firm “shines.”

“We’re out talking to people, meeting them where they gather, doing pop-ups in partnerships with local businesses, offering incentives, and this is on BerryDunn’s time,” Neumann said. “We’ll go buy you a cup of coffee if you’ll give us some feedback.”

What makes BerryDunn’s engagement methods unique, Neumann explained, is that the firm measures how many people are given an opportunity to contribute their thoughts as well as how many responses are actually provided. Measuring “touch points,” as he called those opportunities, includes documenting interactions like how many emails are opened, how many face-to-face conversations are had and how many business cards are distributed.

“While other communities might be happy with a hundred, we’re talking about thousands — if not tens of thousands — of people, documented evidence of them being invited to the conversation,” Neumann said.

Community outreach efforts are planned for April, according to Aguilar. For now, the city is seeking input on the project in two ways: with posts on a virtual wish wall, and through participation in a survey. Both can be accessed at oakharbor.gov/1007/Recreation-Center-Feasibility-Study.

“We can make all the decisions here; ultimately we will, but I think it’s really important that the community comes first. I think it’s their rec center, we are just facilitating it,” Councilmember Barbara Armes said.