I just got a phone call from Bill Harris, a spokesman for Mayor Jerry Sanders, and Stacey LoMedico, the city’s Park and Recreation director.
They wanted to follow up on my post detailing how the city was irrigating Dusty Rhodes Park this morning during a downpour.
LoMedico said that the group in charge of turning off the irrigation is Aztec Landscaping, a city contractor. She said that the Park and Recreation department left a message with the company at 2 p.m. on Friday to remind them of the weather outlook and to remind them to change the sprinkler clocks.
The sprinklers were running when I drove past the park at 7:30 a.m. today. LoMedico said Aztec Landscaping got out to the site at 8 a.m. to deal with the issue. Harris added that the sprinklers would now be shut off “for quite some time.”
“We are disappointed they didn’t get out there sooner and we work as closely as we can with our contractors and with Park and Rec staff to make sure we get to our irrigation timers,” Harris said.
The mayor is holding a series of public workshops this week to warn about the possibility of instituting water rationing measures on city residents.