
Reimagining Public Spaces: Adrian O’Neal on Johnston County’s Park and Rec Development
Jonathan Breeden: [00:00:00] And I’m happy now that the county is going to start looking at helping
the rest of the
Adrian O’Neal: county citizens. Correct. And there’s a great number of good or great parks directors throughout those towns you were just talking about. And there’s a great number of partner groups that we work with on a regular basis. One of the things that we’re tasked with is administering the Open Space Fund.
And we’ve had two cycles of Open Space grants now, where we I don’t know the exact number, but it was a little over one and a half million dollars has been distributed throughout the county for those local groups to build capital projects and to purchase land in their particular areas. And I think that’s really important for us to do.
And it gets a little technical as far as where that money comes from, but it is a good turnover of money this drive through fees and things like that, that really helps out those smaller groups.
Narrator: Welcome to another episode of Best of Johnston County, brought to you by Breeden Law Office. [00:01:00] Our host, Jonathan Breeden, an experienced family lawyer with a deep connection to the community, is ready to take you on a journey through the area that he has called home for over 20 years. Whether it’s a deep dive into the love locals have for the county or unraveling the complexities of family law, Best of Johnston County presents an authentic slice of this unique community.
Jonathan Breeden: Hello and welcome to another episode of the best of Johnson County podcast. I’m your host, Jonathan Breeden. And today we have a special guest with us, Adrian O’Neill, the director of the Parks and Rec in Johnson County. And I’ve been looking forward to this since I was able to get it scheduled because Johnson County is really starting to move forward with more of a countywide park plan, which they’ve not had in the first 20 years.
I lived in Johnson County, and I’m excited about some of the things they’ve been able to do and the leadership that Adrian has been providing along with working with our kind of commissioners who ultimately are in charge of all of this. And we’re going to talk to him today about. Okay. [00:02:00] You know, kind of how he got here and you know, some of the plans of what they’re working on.
If you listen to one of the previous episodes I think back on the first episode we talked to Paul Flaherty of HDR Commercial. We talked about some of the parks, but him and I didn’t have nearly the knowledge that Adrian O’Neill has. And that’s what made me think we should invite him on to talk with us.
Welcome Adrian.
Adrian O’Neal: Thank you for having me.
Jonathan Breeden: So anyway just start, tell me uh, your name, your position and how long you’ve had that position.
Adrian O’Neal: I’m Adrian O’Neill, and I’m the Parks and Open Space Director for Johnston County. And I have been working for Johnston County since November 2019, so right at four years now.
And the, what we do in our department is we look for properties and facilities that can become parks in the future and trails throughout the county and be designated as open space throughout the county.
Jonathan Breeden: Alright, well cool. So, I met you when you first got here. . I was so excited when they, the commissioners committed to hiring [00:03:00] the position because prior to you being hired, there was not a parks and rec director for Johnson County was there.
Adrian O’Neal: That’s correct.
Jonathan Breeden: And there was no budget for Parks and Rec in Johnson County, right? That’s correct. And I think the county, I mean, I moved here in 2000 and the county’s position at least until they hired you in 2019 was. Let the cities do it. . Mm-Hmm. . And then, but you know, if you’re out here in the Cleveland community where I live, there’s 40, 50,000 people out here.
You know, I mean, you know, depending on where you call the Cleveland community. And you know, there was no parks program
Adrian O’Neal: and we are still primarily tasked with. Providing facilities and not doing the programming associated. And we have a lot of partners like greater Cleveland athletic association little Tar Heel league out of Princeton organizations like that really help us out on the program inside.
But we are looking around the County to make sure we have. Examples and representative [00:04:00] places that we can use for basketball, baseball, all the different sports, all the different activities that people want to have in Johnston County, and that a lot of people that are moving into the county are used to from wherever they’re coming from.
Right,
Jonathan Breeden: right. And I think that’s been some of the impetus too. And, you know, the and I’ll have to admit the towns in Johnston County. I think I’ve done an excellent job. I mean, the parks in Clayton are as good as any parks you’ll go to I love Shrack and the Smithfield community park with the miracle league there now and the special needs playground they built there in Smithfield, you know, so the towns have done a really good job for their citizens, you know, and I’m happy now that the county is going to start looking at helping.
The rest of the
Adrian O’Neal: county citizens. Correct. And there’s a great number of good or great parks directors throughout those towns you were just talking about. And there’s a great number of partner groups that we work with on a [00:05:00] regular basis. One of the things that we’re tasked with is administering the open space fund.
And we’ve had two cycles of open space grants now, where we I don’t know the exact number, but it was a little over one and a half million dollars has been distributed throughout the county for those local groups to build capital projects and to purchase land in their particular areas. And I think that’s really important for us to do.
And it gets a little technical as far as where that money comes from, but it is a good turnover of. Money this drive through fees and things like that, that really helps out those smaller groups. Yeah. And,
Jonathan Breeden: And the open space funds for people that don’t know are largely funded by the developers who have to either provide open space in their developments or pay.
A certain amount of money. At one point, it was 400 a lot. I think it’s now 800 a lot if they’re unable to provide open space in their community. And then that [00:06:00] goes into the fund that the county keeps. And then the commissioners. For a long time, and I was one of the people that helped, I think, convince them back in 2014 that they really needed to start doing something with the open space funds because they had not really started giving them out.
They sort of had them and there was some thought they were trying to use it to help. Prop up the fund balance, which you’re not really supposed to do for triple a bond rating stuff. And, I mean, I went and spoke at the commissioners meeting and said, you have this money. I feel like you should do something.
And the greater Cleveland Athletic Association has these needs and the commissioners.
agreed
Jonathan Breeden: And they started to come up with the thing and they said, okay, we’re going to do it by a high school district. And you know, we’re going to take, let people apply grants. And so I wrote a series of grants for GCA.
And the first thing the commissioners did was they gave us the money to put a new roof on the Cleveland gym, the old school gym there. That roof was almost 150, 000, I think [00:07:00] and was desperately needed as it was leaking and stuff like that. They also, with that initial round, paved the driveway around the gym.
There used to be dirt with big holes in it. And that was a big help for GCAA and the next rounds, they We use the greater company association, which I’m the secretary of, we use the money to do. We did the lighting all the underground lighting had gone back to when it was a school 30 years ago and was not safe with some of the power boxes and stuff.
So, so it’s been a really. Great thing for this year we just did we just had the fields leveled and we’re getting some new dugouts at greater Cleveland Association, which plays in the fields right behind the old Cleveland school across from the Cleveland fire department. So I’ve seen what your work and the commissioners and the open space funds have done for the children that play at GCAA.
And it’s been tremendous. I want to thank you for
Adrian O’Neal: that. Well, this the least I can do the, open space funds are great. And we really have to rely. A lot on [00:08:00] grants and getting grants through our different resources. That’s why one of the first positions we hired besides mine was uh, grants coordinator.
And we use that grants coordinator position to leverage funds throughout the County. we have brought in approximately $3,000,000 through grants. And we’re working on some different projects. One of the things that we’ve done most recently was the master plan for. The new property that’s at Cleveland and the old property, because we figured if we’re doing the new property, we need to look at the old property too, and make sure we’re not duplicating services from one to the other.
And also make sure that when we get through, we’ve got something that’s really nice. One of the things I have to remind people all the time, because, you know, a lot of the folks around here are a little bit old school and they’ve been around for a long time and they remember how parks used to be done.
You know. Farmers don’t build parks in the wintertime anymore, and parks are a very technical item, [00:09:00] and they are very expensive, but well worth the cost. So we, one of the first things we do is do one of these master plans, so that when we build facilities, and we go back, and it allows us to build those facilities in phases, rather than building something, And then we have to tear into the edge of it to build the next thing, and tear into the edge of it to build the next thing.
We like to have that master plan in place, so if even ten years from now, I’m not here, or the people who did the plan are not here, it’s still in place. And it’s organic enough so it can change. With technology, but it’s solid enough that you can still build those items that you’ve been promises promising for years and years.
Jonathan Breeden: Yeah. And for the visitors out there that are not aware the the county has purchased 80 acres of land at Matthews Road and Polenta Road in the Cleveland community. For the first Really county park that [00:10:00] johnson county has ever had and as part of that master plan They’re also going to redo the 13 acres that the greater cleveland athletic association uses With the old gym behind the old elementary school.
there on cleveland school road across from the fire department and There’ll be two, you’re going to completely redo the original 13 acres, and then they’re going to build a very nice part on the other 80 acres. And then across Palena is another 13 acres that the county has purchased as well. That’s also going to be part of this sort of community.
First Wide county Park I know there’s been a lot of I’ve been to a lot of meetings about it. I know you’ve hosted a lot of meetings about it. And it’s, I think it’s going to be really nice when it’s done, but the question for all of us out here in Cleveland, and the other people in the county, they want to see it done is the master plan.
I saw 50M dollars. Where does 50 million come and when could we start to see stuff [00:11:00] on that 80 acres that right now is a bean
Adrian O’Neal: field? Well, 50 million is a big number. It’s kind of like you, you know, you’ve always heard the old saying, you eat it, you do it like you eat an elephant one piece at a time.
And that’s why when we did the planning on that, we did it in phases with the 80 acres you spoke about. As at least three different phases and they’re even more splitable than that. So we can, you know, like phase one, we can split into phase one, a phase one, one B. So we look at those and we try to position them around the type of grants we can apply for.
Um, we, one of our, two of our. So, big sources are Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, which is a statewide grant, and then Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is a national grant. We did receive funding from both of those when we purchased the property, so that means that they liked our idea when we came up with it, with that being a park.
And so [00:12:00] we’ve gone back again, and we’ve received a Parks and Recreation, an additional Parks and Recreation Trust Fund. For that property. And we are in the application phases of doing a land and water conservation fund grant. And a lot of times you’ll see us having community meetings and those community meetings are to get information from the community, but they’re also to bolster those grant applications when we do.
So it’s very important that you come to those community meetings and make sure you get your two cents in about how you want this park to look. Because until something is actually on the ground, you still have a chance to change what’s going to be in there and make sure that we’re Doing things that are up to date because there are sometimes when athletic things that people do in athletics or in recreation kind of go out of style or just are not used as much.
And we want to make sure that what we put out there. It’s not just a [00:13:00] fad that’s going through. We want to make sure that it can be used for the next 20 years. 20 years is kind of our lifetime cycle that we talk about a park. We know that after it’s been there 20 years or maybe at the 15 year mark, we’re going to have to start looking at it and say, okay, does this still fit the needs of the community?
And so we’re always updating as money is, comes available. When we can,
Jonathan Breeden: right. And the one thing I think that the people listening to the podcast would like to know is the new master plan actually has stuff for adults on it. You know, right now, everything out here has largely been the greater Cleveland Athletic Association, which provides you know, team sports for Basketball, baseball, softball, soccer, and volleyball for about 000 children every year, but it’s only for children.
The Greater Cleveland Athletic Association does not provide any adult programming at all, and [00:14:00] we’re constantly getting asked about that. I got an email at my secretary. At gca sports.com email yesterday at looking for an adult basketball league. And so, but I do believe once this comes to be, there are walking trails, there’s pickleball, there’s other stuff for seniors.
. There’s. I think there’s a dog park, like, it’s really going to be more than just, yes, it’s going to be some soccer fields and some baseball fields for the youth that, that are, you know, desperately needed in this area, but there’s going to be stuff for everybody and we don’t really have anything for everybody right now, at least not.
In Cleveland or McGee’s Crossroads the towns do, but not the county.
Adrian O’Neal: Well, one of the things that we look at, we do a lot of research as far as what people want. One of the main things that comes up all the time is trails. So we have a large trail component around the park. We have a [00:15:00] nature area around the park.
We have open fields that you can use for many different uses. I mean just to go lay out and read a book or meditate. We have a amphitheater that will go in there. We do have a dog park. Like you said, the soccer fields soccer fields, I like to call them general purpose fields because they can be used for football, soccer, different things.
And we have a small fishing pond that will go in the first three items that’ll go in over there is a pickleball court. A small retention slash fishing pond and a back outdoor basketball court. And uh, those will also be accompanied by the underground work or the utility work and kind of the base for the roads and things like that, because you kind of have to get that out of the way.
You don’t want to be tearing it up every time you come in and out. So those are kind of our first about what I call phase one a, and that’s what the. Really the first 3 million is going to pay for in that part.
Jonathan Breeden: And that could [00:16:00] happen in the next
Adrian O’Neal: 12 months. Well, with our parks, recreation, trust fund grant.
We have to be started within, well actually we have to be finished within three years. So we’re looking at those three items and some of the underground work being finished within three years, and we hope that we’re adding funding through grants all along the way because it’s a whole lot cheaper to keep a contractor out there than it is to bring them, let them come in, do a little work, and then leave and come
Jonathan Breeden: back.
So when did you get the grant? I mean, I know we’ve been, this project’s been, You know, long work. I was one of the, I was on the very first call with the county manager, Rick Hester to the lady who owned the land, who was looking at maybe donating some of the land to the county and, you know, what that might look like or selling the land to the county.
And so, I mean, it’s been a, it’s been a long time coming for me and the county manager and the people in this community. You So, I mean, I mean, you got the grant. Was it, you get it? I mean, [00:17:00] we’re recording this, who knows when people listen to this. We’re recording this in, in, at the in December of 2023.
So I don’t know. I mean, did you get the grant in 2023? We,
Adrian O’Neal: we got notification that we received the grant in September, if I’m not mistaken. And what we have to do is wait for paperwork to come in, just like anything else. The actual contract that goes with the grant came in. In November and in the last commissioner’s meeting in November, they voted to accept the grant.
So once it’s accepted all that paperwork signed, that’s when our three year mark starts. So we have just started that three years. I would say three years from December, 2023 is our, you know, when you should start looking for something.
Jonathan Breeden: And, is. Is there any thought that the commissioners, and we’re going to have commissioners on in the future for people listening hopefully we’re going to have a lot of them but, but we’ll, I will ask Adrian Neal, since he’s here now, they think about running a, maybe running a bond for parks to help [00:18:00] speed this along.
I know you don’t have a vote on that, but if they talk to you about that,
Adrian O’Neal: you know, that’s what happens in Wake County and that’s how they have done their parks funding for many years now and they’ve been very successful. Bonds for the most part for parks are very successful throughout the state of North Carolina.
This last election cycle there was one that, that did not go through. Bonds are always dependent upon the communication that’s done beforehand. I will say that our commissioners are very supportive of parks. They have been very supportive of the park since I’ve been here. And I think at some point there will be a need for the bond.
I’m not sure it’ll happen during this election cycle, but if it did happen this election cycle, we could definitely use it. Right.
Jonathan Breeden: All right. Well, that’s cool. That’s cool. We’ll make sure we ask them what they think of what they think of the pods. You know, when they’re on the podcast in the next few weeks coming up and that’ll be interesting.
We’ll [00:19:00] put them on the spot. They’re the elected officials. You just try to live out what their vision.
Have family law questions? Need guidance to navigate legal challenges? The compassionate team at Breeden Law Office is here to help. Visit us at www. breedenfirm. com for practical advice, resources, or to book a consultation. Remember, when life gets messy, you don’t have to face it alone.
Jonathan Breeden: I mean, some other things we talked about the Cleveland park talk a little bit about the mountains to the sea trail, what it is, where it is, you know, how it impacts Johnston County.
I don’t, I think a lot of people are unaware
Adrian O’Neal: of that. Yeah, we’ve received over the last two years, we’ve received approximately 450, 000 to do planning for the Mountains to Sea Trail, the East Coast Greenway, and county wide trails and greenways plan. thE Mountains to Sea Trail and the East Coast Greenway are both, considered state trails.[00:20:00]
The East Coast Greenway is a national trail. It goes from Maine to Florida. The Mountains to Sea Trail is a state trail. It goes from the mountains of North Carolina Murphy to Manteo. And both of those are very legitimate trails, long hike trails or Short day hike trails and we are one of the last counties for the mountains to see trail to be completed and probably one of the hardest counties because of the amount of development that’s going on in Johnston County right now But we’ve done a feasibility study The first one was from Clayton to Smithfield and we’ve got that in the books now It provided us three different routes that we could take As far as purchasing land and getting easements and building trails.
And we’re working on those right now. We’ve got a new portion of trail that we’ll be going in with the new school over at Wilson’s mills. Okay. It’ll be right behind the high school and that’ll be a big portion of trail. It kind of follows [00:21:00] the river. That’s
Jonathan Breeden: what I always thought. It kind of follows the noose river where
Adrian O’Neal: it can, where it can.
Right. Okay. And the. Mountains of C Trail and East Coast Greenway actually parallel each other from the county, western county line all the way down to Four Oaks. Okay. Once they get to Four Oaks, they split. Okay. And the Mountains of C Trail goes. Towards the coast and then the East Coast Greenway goes towards Fayetteville and down towards South Carolina.
Okay. And Right now we’re in the probably about the middle of doing the feasibility study from Smithfield to the Harnett County line Okay, so we’ve got a lot of our partners in there Giving us their viewpoint and we’ve got DOT. We’ve got the railroad, all the players in the game, you might say making sure that we’re not putting something on a plan that will not work in the future.
So right now, if you look at our feasibility study for [00:22:00] that part of the county, we’ve got a spider web and what we’re doing is we’re looking at each one of those different segments and we’re saying, okay. This one’s not going to work, so we take it off the map. And we might, somebody might come in and say, Well, have you thought about this?
And we put a new segment on the map. Until we get down to what we think is the most feasible one or two routes that are available. And once that’s done, and we get that approved by the Board of Commissioners, if that’s what they decide to do, then it helps us out later on when DOT comes in. If they’re building a new road, then they have to consider that plan.
Because it is a documented plan. And if it coincides with their construction of the road, then the OT actually will build that part of the trail. Oh,
Jonathan Breeden: that’s nice. Okay. Well, and the DOT is doing a ton of construction here in Johnson County. I mean, it’s unbelievable. Are there any other, so you’re working on a.
I guess you’re working on a Parks and Rec master plan for the entire county.
Adrian O’Neal: Well, [00:23:00] we’ve done a Parks and Rec master plan. That was one of the first things and that identified the position I’m in now and the need for it. You know, and the one thing I’d like to stress is that, you know, a plan is really never complete.
Because we have to have a Parks and Rec master plan for most of these grants we apply. And once that plan gets to be about 10 years old, Then they say, okay, you don’t have a master plan anymore. You’ve got an old master plan. That’s not up to date. So we have to constantly update this plan at least every five years.
We may do a light update or we may do a full blown redo it, a master plan. So in, you know, about four more years, we’ll come up on. Having to do a redo of the entire master plan, which after you’ve done it one or two times It’s not as difficult as it was at first time but you still want to get those viewpoints throughout the community because the People in the community may have changed and that’s one thing that happens here in Johnston County Very regularly because we have so [00:24:00] many people moving in every day And it makes a whole lot of difference to make sure that you’re got, you’ve got the input of that community and you’re putting your ear to the ground.
So, you know, what’s happening. Yeah,
Jonathan Breeden: well, I guess a question I always am asked, and I’ve asked this question a million times, and I kind of know the answer, but. You know, we have all these schools and some schools are used by the parks and recs and the town parks and recs Selma has a tremendous relationship between the school and their parks and rec department.
And in other places. The communities can’t really use the schools. Can you explain how community groups either do or do not get access to the schools and why there can’t, there doesn’t seem to be some sort of universal policy that would allow people to use these schools and fields that the taxpayers have already paid for.
Adrian O’Neal: We’re working on that right now with the school system. We’re talking to them about[00:25:00] a pilot program called Schools to Parks, where, you know, we see that there’s hours after the school day that potentially the school could be used in a manner that it would be a de facto park. We know that during the summertime, there are schools throughout the community that, you know, there’s three months of year.
That there’s really nobody there other than the administration and we are working with Johnston County schools to look at the opportunities that are available and try to do something a little different. Now there may be some schools that just don’t work in it. And I think if you really look at the high schools, they are not going to work because of the fact that they have so much programming that goes on throughout the year.
I mean, you know, a lot of times they’re, their sports teams are getting ready throughout the year or having different. Summer camps and things like that. But a lot of our middle schools and even our elementary schools that have been middle schools have baseball fields. They have softball fields, they have football, soccer fields, [00:26:00] and a lot of them have track, you know, a walking track.
And there is some of those being used now. I would encourage any of those groups that are not being able to use their local field to really. communicate with the school system because most of the time what we find is that community there’s a communication gap there and once that communication gap is kind of pushed through that there’s a whole resource that opens up to them.
So you know that’s one of the big things but I hope in the future. Overall in the county, we can do something that will help the schools out and help the, our partner groups out because there’s a, you’re right. There’s a huge amount of money that’s spent on these schools when they’re built in the landscaping and the fields and things like that.
And you know, school principals and the school administrators are not supposed to know what to do with a baseball field or a football field or a basketball, you know, and we hope that there’s ways that we can help out with that [00:27:00] in the future. And we are working on some different things right now.
Jonathan Breeden: Well, and we ask everybody that comes here as we start to wind down this episode of the best of johnson county podcast I know you live in wayne county, but you and you work for the state parks department for a long time What do you you’ve been here? four or five years working now doing a tremendous job.
The citizens of this county owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude. I know you’re not looking for it, but I just don’t think people understand how much you’ve done for this community, the whole county, greater Cleveland Athletic Association and everything else. What have you found that you love about Johnston
Adrian O’Neal: County?
Well, Johnston County is really a homespun area when you start looking at it, regardless of where you move from or who moves in, there’s just a community spirit in Johnston County and it, filters down from local government. All the way I really enjoy working for the county. It’s been a great work relationship.
[00:28:00] And the county itself still has, even though there’s so many people moving in, it still has that small town feel. About it everywhere you go. And you know, I get picked on about my accent sometimes, but I don’t care, I mean, that’s just part of being in this area and from this
Jonathan Breeden: area. Yeah. Well, what is you excited about, Johnson County and the parks and what your department is doing over the next couple of years that we talked about the Cleveland community park, but what else might have you
Adrian O’Neal: excited?
The support. We have great support from our county commissioners. We have great support from the community. We have great potential for growth in our park system. You know, we kind of get a little bit disheartened sometimes when you start doing these trails or you start doing these parks because you see roadblocks that come up, but it seems like a lot of times those roadblocks are just temporary in Johnston County.
And we’re seeing people that come around to the, you know, To the viewpoint and they say, Hey, we do need a park here. We do need a place for [00:29:00] these kids to, to use for their activities for adults to use for their activities. And, you know, you write about that a while ago, you talked about kids being the focus for so long, but there are so many young adults now that want to get outside and do things and they’re not.
Harnessed to a desk anymore. Like maybe you and I were when they were young in our careers and it’s it’s. It’s very interesting to see that, and it just opens up a whole new realm of support.
Jonathan Breeden: Right, there’s no doubt. It’s going to be interesting over the next few years. You know, now that this group of commissioners has really made, I mean, they’re making a concerted effort.
I mean, to improve the parks and stuff around here. Hiring you creating your office, you know, having a budget for you to do what you’re trying to do I think is I mean that’s just it for people that are maybe new here That just did not happen until they hired him in 2019 that was just not something this county, was really focused
Adrian O’Neal: on at all Well, the [00:30:00] north carolina legislature has done a lot too because you think we just we’re coming off the year to trail In North Carolina, there was a lot of funding that became available with a year to trail.
A lot of our support groups like the Friends of the Mountains of Sea, the East Coast Greenway Coalition, both of them have funding from the state legislature. So that was a big boom this year. And we also have a local group in Johnston County, Friends of Johnston County Parks and Open Space. They cover not only the parks, but they cover the arts in the county, right?
They do. They’re a great group. Great group. They’re growing by leaps and bounds. You know, I looked got a sticker with the date on it, and they’ve been around for about three years now. And you know, they’ve got a board in place. They’re a 5 0 1 C3 and they’re fixing to start a membership drive.
And so we’ve got a lot going on with it
Jonathan Breeden: as well. Well, if any of the citizens out there that listen to this podcast or watch it on YouTube or whatever, wanted to get in touch with you or your office, what’s the best way to do
Adrian O’Neal: that? [00:31:00] The best way is to look us up online. If you, it’s kind of a hard email address, but if you just Google Johnston County parks NC, it’ll come up.
And that also is a guide to, if you’re new in the county, it’s a guide to where maybe you’re. Children, or you want to play sports because it kind of directs you based on your address to the closest sports partner that we have in the county. Oh,
Jonathan Breeden: that’s awesome. And there are a lot of great sports partners and I’ve been extremely involved with the greater Cleveland Athletic Association.
And there’s tons of them where there’s football with the Civitans and Clayton and there’s Archer’s Lodge and Four Oaks and Benson. I mean, everybody. The micro’s got a league McGee’s Crossroads Athletic Association. There are tons. So if you have a child that would like to be involved in youth sports, there, there is definitely a place for him or her to play in Johnston County with these largely these nonprofits that have sprung up to provide services for these kids.
Well, that’ll be it for today’s episode of the best of Johnston [00:32:00] County. If you like what you’ve heard and would like to know. More and not to miss out on any future episodes, feel free to like or subscribe or follow this podcast so that you won’t miss the future episodes, including with some of our county commissioners, where we might ask about that parks bond and what their vision for parks is going to end up being.
And you might want to see what their answer is. So until next time I’m Jonathan Breeden. Thanks for listening.
That’s the end of today’s episode of Best of Johnston County, a show brought to you by the trusted team at Breeden Law Office. We thank you for joining us today and we look forward to sharing more interesting facets of this community next week. Every story, every viewpoint adds another thread to the rich tapestry of Johnston County.
If the legal aspects highlighted raised some questions, help is just around the corner at www. breedenfirm. com.
Welcome to the Best of Johnston County Podcast! In this episode, your host, Jonathan Breeden, introduces a special guest, Adrian O’Neal – the person spearheading meaningful change in the county’s public spaces. Adrian is the Director of Parks and Open Space in Johnston County, a position he has held since November 2019.
Adrian speaks elaborately on the promising outlook for Johnston County’s park and rec development under his leadership. He discusses peculiar collaborations with county commissioners and details his strategy in actualizing Johnston County’s first 20-year countywide park plan.
The conversation expands on the future of parks, open spaces, and the overall improvement of public amenities in the county. Whether you’re a resident or a visitor looking forward to experiencing the best of Johnston County, this episode offers an exciting peek into what the future holds.
Other subjects we covered on the show:
- Adrian O’Neal’s journey to becoming the Director of Parks and Open Space.
- Inside details of the 20-year countywide park plan.
- The integral role of county commissioners in policy-making and park development.
- The future of public spaces in Johnston County.
AND MORE TOPICS COVERED IN THE FULL INTERVIEW!!! You can check that out and subscribe to YouTube.
Listen On