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Blake Cevering has launched an effort to raise funds to help jumpstart plans to develop Barker Park in North Ogden. He's pictured Monday, Oct. 19, 2020, in an undeveloped expanse of the park, now used to grow alfalfa.

TIM VANDENACK, Standard-Examiner

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Blake Cevering has launched an effort to raise funds to help jumpstart plans to develop Barker Park in North Ogden. He's pictured Monday, Oct. 19, 2020, in an undeveloped expanse of the park, now used to grow alfalfa.

TIM VANDENACK, Standard-Examiner

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NORTH OGDEN — Twenty years after the city of North Ogden acquired the land to create Barker Park, about half of the space is developed, part of it housing a state-of-the-art amphitheater.

The rest, though, remains undeveloped, used mainly to grow alfalfa.

The slow pace of finishing the job has been the focus of periodic handwringing, head-shaking and discussion among city leaders and the public. And now, with city funding tight, Blake Cevering is hoping to jumpstart things via formation of a new nonprofit group, Build Barker Park, and collection of private donations to prod the project along. “Let’s just get this rocking and rolling,” he said.

Cevering, a Realtor, is a member of the North Ogden City Council, but he’s pursuing the unique effort as a private citizen, hoping to tap the goodwill of the public and local businesses to get things moving. Mayor S. Neal Berube and other city officials are on board and, philosophically speaking, Cevering hopes it serves to show how government’s guiding hand isn’t needed for everything. “I think government underestimates what people will do,” he said.

More to the point, perhaps, he’s anxious to see the land finally turned into public green space, creating a new marquee park in the city. The plot where the park sits, the finished portion around the amphitheater and the undeveloped area to the north, measures around 42 acres, according to Weber County property records. The city acquired the land in two transactions in 2000, the more southerly portion from Ray and Fern Barker and the expanse north of the hollow that bisects the land from Carl and Lorna Barker. Ray and Carl Barker, who have since died, were brothers and when the two Barker couples sold the property to the city, they envisioned it becoming public space or parkland for use by families.

Rod Barker, one of Ray and Fern Barker’s sons, hasn’t concerned himself too much with the slow pace of park development. He lives adjacent to the site and is one of many Barker family members scattered around North Ogden. Still, he expressed satisfaction with the fundraising initiative, just now gaining steam, and moves to whip the park into shape.

“We think it’s long overdue,” Barker said.

Image supplied, City of North Ogden

City Attorney Jon Call sees the initiative as a way of conserving city funds, while Berube said it could serve as a blueprint for future public-private efforts. “I think it might be a wave of the future as things tighten up,” Berube said.

As is, neither Cevering nor Berube think the city will be able to free up resources to develop the park, not in the near-term at least. City leaders are mulling construction of a new police department building, possibly via bonding if the public is supportive of such a venture, limiting the ability to pursue other large-scale projects without borrowing. The work on the park area that’s yet to be done has a preliminary price tag of $7 million, according to Call.

Barker Park sits at 2376 Fruitland Drive. The southern portion contains the amphitheater — a notable project in itself due to the controversy it generated — as well as a small playground and a grassy expanse. The focus of Cevering’s new fundraising initiative sits north of that, on land now used, by and large, to grow alfalfa. He has no specific timeline, but for starters, he hopes to generate enough money to seed a 4.5-acre section with grass and install a watering system.

He and some of his Realtor colleagues have committed 10% of their earnings from future land deals to aid the effort while two contractors have also indicated a willingness to donate funds. The Pizza Pie Cafe in North Ogden vowed to donate a portion of sales from this Monday and next, Oct. 26, to the cause.

The overall park plans are ambitious, at least gauging by the blueprint prepared by the city, supplied by Call and dating to 2016. According to the four-year-old vision, the park would contain basketball courts, a splash pad, a “high adventure” playground, pickleball courts, sand volleyball courts and more.

Much of it would remain green open space, though, and the tree-filled areas abutting a creek that cuts through the land would remain, according to Cevering. When selling the land, the Barkers envisioned a place where families could gather, and Cevering said their vision still holds.

The Barkers “just wanted it to be a place of introspection, getting in touch with nature, getting in touch with your family,” Cevering said.

The amphitheater, built starting in late 2017, is largely done, though Call said long-term plans call for the addition of a speaker system and lighting. Some $3.5 million has been spent on that particular initiative so far, according to Berube, which generated concern from some nearby neighbors, worried about disruption from activities held at the facility.

This story has been updated to correct details of the city’s acquisition of the land that makes up Barker Park.