What happened to Columbus’ Flat Rock Park? $8M sales tax could bring overdue revival

There is something especially magical about Flat Rock Park. Upon entering, the slick rocks enchant visitors with clear, flowing waters, enticing children to use nature’s waterslide as a reprieve from the Columbus heat.

The waterslide turns into Flat Rock Creek. It’s lined with trees and small bridges that take people from picnic tables to dining halls, more open space, and eventually to Flat Rock Park Lake. The 214-acre, 67-year-old park is paved with roads for walkers, runners, bikers and disc golfers. Young or old passive among the wildlife or active in playgrounds, there is seemingly something for everyone to enjoy at Flat Rock Park.

But the park has been in an era of disenchantment for some time, far from its glory days.

“The park has been through generations of abuse,” Columbus Councilmember Gary Allen, who has been in the position for 32 years and whose district covers half of Flat Rock Park, told the Ledger-Enquirer.

Today, Flat Rock is littered with trash, dangerous aging and unappealing infrastructure like playgrounds, benches and grills that look about as old as the park. Trees are dying and need to be removed, and restroom facilities are shut down due to septic issues.

Those who remember the park as a place to go for the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, or church gatherings have taken to Facebook or Trip Advisor to echo that the conditions are what Sylvette Walsh calls “deplorable” and “in shambles.”

Walsh, a local Columbusite who once adorned Flat Rock Park, blames the city and parks and recreation for its current state of disrepair.

“The city has allowed it to fall to ruin,” Walsh said. “The whole park is in shambles. What used to be attractive rock buildings and restrooms are in deplorable and unusable conditions. The Parks (and Recreation) department has totally ignored it.”

‘Growing pains’ for Columbus park

The Columbus Parks and Recreation Department has been through a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows since its inception in the ‘70s.

Department directors have had differing priorities over the decades, between managing crime prevention or vandalism clean-ups, staff shortages, or budget cuts during a global pandemic. The office has also encountered legal issues.

Kenneth Talbert, the parks director from 1984 to 1988, told the Ledger-Enquirer in 1988 that “people don’t go out (to Flat Rock) anymore” because of safety concerns and, “it’s tough for two park rangers to cover all their territory.”

The last time Flat Rock Park had Park Rangers was in 1996, according to Holli Browder, the current director of Parks and Recreation.

Rick Gordon served as director from 1989 to 1998. Tony Adams took over as the new director after Gordon, when vandalism was reportedly an issue in 2000 and 2005 at Flat Rock.

Adams was later fired from the position after being convicted of a felony for laundering public money into a private bank account in 2010.

The department rose to acclaim during James Worsley’s tenure as director from 2011 to 2016, earning the Georgia Agency of the Year award for “excellence in services, resource management, and long-range planning,” according to the Georgia Parks and Recreation Association.

Holli Browder was assistant to Worsley in 2013 and took over his position in 2016 , still serving as the director today.

“We’ve grown a lot since Rick Gordon,” Columbus Councilmember Charmaine Crabb said. Crabb’s district shares the other half of Flat Rock Park with Allen. Crabb, who moved to Columbus in 1994 lived in a subdivision near Flat Rock Park and remembers taking her kids to the park.

“I think we’ve grown to the point where we have growing pains,” she said.

Growing pains include car break-ins, for example. One photo on Facebook shows a car with smashed windows in July. There is not a dedicated Columbus Police Department officer for the park, though the police department does monitor it.

“The Patrol coverage at Flat Rock Park has generally been consistent,” Brittany Santigo, spokesperson for the Columbus Police Department, said in an email. “The officer(s) assigned to this beat covers Flat Rock Park as part of their regular duties. There are no additional CPD officers specifically assigned to patrol the park outside of those who occasionally drive by during their shift.”

The area surrounding Flat Rock has transformed from verdant forest to subdivisions, restaurants and other developments over the last 40 years.

While development has grown, the budget for parks and recreation to provide safe, accessible, aesthetically pleasing facilities and services in 51 parks has stayed relatively the same, hovering around $10 million per year from 2007 to 2022.

The department’s budget decreased during the pandemic to $8 million in 2021 and rose back to $10 million in 2023 and $12 million in 2024. This summer, the city agreed to allocate $15.1 million to parks and recreation for the 2025 fiscal year. It’s the largest annual budget the department has ever had.

Browder, who took the director position because she enjoys giving back and serving her community, pointed to budget constraints and a lack of personnel as her biggest hindrances to achieving the parks department’s mission.

“I don’t believe there has been a downfall (since Rick Gordon), although we have lacked funding requested to make changes to the park,” Browder said in an email.

Parks staff has ebbed and flowed from four to eight administrative positions and between 66 and 82 park services personnel since 2007.

“We’ve asked for numerous positions over the years but have been limited in receiving positions for the department and we lack candidates to interview or hire for positions in some areas of the department,” she added.

Documents for the 2025 budget show 11 parks and recreation administrator positions and 74 park services staff have been requested. There is $314,000 allocated for five park ranger positions and $87,000 for one chief park ranger position.

Litter is ‘a losing battle’

Litter is a problem throughout Columbus, with illegal dumping at an all-time high in certain areas. Flat Rock Park is not immune to this issue.

Trash and lack of cleanliness is a common complaint on the Flat Rock Park Trip Advisor and Yelp pages . Many blame the city.

“The litter problem is citizens,” Councilwoman Crabb said. The city doesn’t throw litter. In the last 30 years I’ve watched as citizens stopped taking personal responsibility and expect the government to take care of everything. There is not enough tax dollars to take care of everything.”

The city’s 2025 budget book says the parks department is responsible for picking up waste deposited in 2,000 trash receptacles in 51 parks around the city. They do this with one truck.

Renee Bator, professor of psychology at New York State University, Plattsburg, has studied behavior toward littering for over a decade.

“People only refrain if they think they are going to get caught,” Bator said. “You want people to feel like they are part of a community and be litter-free. It’s important seeing people clean up to spark a norm that ‘you shouldn’t litter’”

Crabb and Councilman Allen hope citizens become more involved in cleaning the park.

“Citizen involvement is really crucial and when we get to this size of a city its necessary,” she said. “It seems like common kindness and concern for the others has kind of disappeared.

Water quantity and quality

In August, the stream coming through the tunnel beneath the Warm Springs Road bridge was closer to a trickle than a whitewater roar.

Department of Engineering Director Donna Newman says the weather conditions and recent lack of rain has a lot to do with how much water comes through Flat Rock Park. She added that because of the rigorous permits that developers have to go through to build subdivisions, that water quantity shouldn’t be impacted.

“Developers have to apply for a land-disturbing permit which comes to the Department of Engineering,” Newman said. “Then we look at hydraulic calculations, they hire a private engineer who has to submit plans to unified development ordinances…if they have wetlands, flood plains, creeks, or anything like that. They also have to provide water quality which is part of the MS4 permit which is more about water quality.”

The watchdog river and creek nonprofit, Chattahoochee Riverkeepers, has been testing water quality at Flat Rock Creek consistently since 2019. They have a live “swim guide” website that shows the health of the water from testing the presence for E. coli.

Henry Jacobs, deputy director of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, said Flat Rock Creek rarely meets the EPA standard for E. coli contents, but typically only exceeds that limit “by a little bit.”

This summer, 78% of samples taken failed the E. coli tests .

That water eventually ends up in Flat Rock Lake, which is too full.

It’s full of sediment from erosion, typically stemming from development, said Dorothy McDaniel, the executive director of Trees Columbus. McDaniel wants to restore tree canopy at Flat Rock Park and add more tree diversity like she is at other parks thanks to recent grant awards , but can’t do that until old trees are removed and the flood plain lowers.

Speaking about both Flat Rock and Cooper Creek, McDaniel said the lake fills up and then floods the banks.

“When that happens you get mature trees that have grown up in a dryer condition and then sitting in water regularly and those aren’t conditions that the trees are used to,” she said. “We don’t have the funding to remove trees and we don’t want to plant in areas that are currently regularly flooded, especially if they are planning on dredging the lakes.”

Can tax money turn the page at Flat Rock?

The parks department will receive $8.8 million from the 2021 special local option sales tax funds for fiscal year 2025 and $7.3 million in fiscal year 2026. The department hopes to use that money to address all of the concerns of safety, cleanliness, facility functionality, and other factors within the department’s control.

“The main thing we did for Flat Rock was put it on a list of SPLOST projects which is sort of a pay as you go format,” Allen said. “We had to raise the dollars to focus on Flat Rock and we had other priorities that were more urgent and that’s why we have the 2025/2026 fiscal year as the target date now.”

Browder has a list of renovations and changes to make with the new SPLOST money for 2025.

“We will … look at dredging the lake to make sure we have a positive impact on the environment and the park as a whole,” Browder said in an email.

But the two replacement playgrounds are the first items on Browder’s list. She wrote in an email that playground costs vary but begin at $100,000.

Julian Stewart lives in the housing development across the street from Flat Rock Park. She moved here in 2021 and would benefit from the new playground.

“The park could use some upkeep – benches need to be fixed so people can come sit and eat,” she said. ”I used to take my grandkids to the playground, but even in the last three years I’ve noticed the quality of the park go downhill.”

Browder said she will add new bathrooms, and update pavilions and heavy-use areas in the park from the 2025 fiscal year SPLOST money.

Crabb is concerned about citizens breaking new property.

“We repair bathrooms and within a week they will be destroyed,” she said. “I’ve seen it happen all over the city since being in council.” (Crabb has been in council for six years.)

In fact, the bathroom toilets at Flat Rock were replaced in 2017, according to the Ledger-Enquirer’s reporting.

Crabb told the Ledger-Enquirer the new budget also put aside funds for park surveillance.

Browder encourages Columbusites to use the City’s 311 app to voice concerns, ask questions, request service, offer a suggestion, or register a complaint.