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Advisory Board Meeting

Town of Cary · Parks, Recreation & Cultural Resources Advisory Board
Monday, September 14, 2026 at 5:15 pm · Virtual / Conference Room 10035, Call-in Information will be available on agenda, For in-person attendance: 316 N. Academy Street, Cary, NC 27513

Advisory board meeting Arts and public artPublic facilitiesSubdivision and site plansParks and recreationRezoningSchools and education

Agenda document Full packet Minutes Meeting page Watch Meeting recap

What is in the packet

Cary's Parks, Recreation & Cultural Resources Advisory Board takes up the Godbold Park playground renovation plan and its own draft annual report for 2025-2026. The report lists the board's work over the year, including a recommendation to dissolve the Athletic Committee and fold its duties into the board, $192,000 in Cultural Arts grant recommendations, and six land dedication reviews tied to rezoning cases, among them Hatcher Property, Jacobs Creek Lane and Searstone PDD. The board also reviews its 2025-2026 work plan for input on next year's priorities.

Read from the first 27 pages of the packet. Open the full packet if this is not enough.

What was decided

  1. Approved Draft PRCR Annual Report 25-26 Approved 8-0 (Masterson absent)

Read from the agenda's recorded outcomes. Where the board published minutes, those are the record — this is a pointer to them.

What's on this agenda

Cary's Parks, Recreation and Cultural Resources Advisory Board meets at 5:15, in conference room 10035 and by phone. The substantive business is under New/Old Business: a renovation plan for the Godbold Park playground presented by Andrew Marsden, the board's own annual report, a review of its 2025-2026 work plan, and a welcome to Cary Teen Council representatives.

The rest is the board's standing round of reports — administration and parks, cultural arts, Downtown Cary Park, sports and community centres, and committee reports — with a Teen Council report and a Cary Art Daze work group report beneath them. A council liaison comment from Sarika Bansal and a director's report from John Collins open the meeting, and there is a public comment period. Written comments sent before noon on the day are summarised at the meeting.

One caution for anyone reading the item list on this page: it is not the agenda. The six entries the portal published are the names of attached files, not the ten numbered items above.

Summarized from the published agenda. Read the agenda itself before acting on it.

Meeting recap

What happened, drawn from the records published after the meeting. Minutes

Cary's parks advisory board approved its 2025-26 annual report on 14 September, 8-0 with Jenelle Masterson absent. It also gave staff feedback on designs for a new playground at Robert V. Godbold Park, a $400,000 renovation. Members' comments touched on the target age group, accessibility, shade, swings and seating. The board then discussed its 2025-26 work plan without a vote.

The director reported a town boil water advisory after a water main break and discussed the inspection cycle for structures on the White Oak Creek Greenway. Reports put attendance at Lazy Daze at about 55,000, and the Greenway Committee was to preview the Black Creek Greenway near Crabtree Lake that week. No one spoke at public comment. The minutes do not say whether they have been approved.

How the votes went

Agenda adopted 8-0; 3 August minutes accepted 8-0; 2025-26 annual report approved 8-0 (Herndon moved, Manuel seconded). Masterson absent on each.

From the published minutes.

Who spoke

No members of the public spoke.

Read from the records the government published after the meeting. Members of the public are private residents and are not named or indexed.

Speaking at this meeting

Sign up for Public Speaks Out by calling the town before noon on the day of the meeting; each speaker gets three minutes. Comments that arrive after noon are passed to the council as correspondence instead.

Town of Cary's own rules for public comment — check them before you rely on anything here.

Agenda items (6)

Staff or committee report · 5Discussion item · 1
  1. Draft PRCR Annual Report 25-26
    Staff or committee report Arts and public artParks and recreationRezoningSubdivision and site plans
    The board's draft 2025-26 annual report lists the year's work, including six land-dedication or payment-in-lieu recommendations under Section 8 of the Land Development Ordinance, most recently on the Jacobs Creek Lane rezoning and the Hatcher property case in August. It also notes $192,000 in cultural arts grant recommendations and a vote to dissolve the Athletic Committee into the board itself.
    Approved 8-0 (Masterson absent)
  2. 2025-2026 PRCR Advisory Board Work Plan
    Discussion item Public facilitiesSubdivision and site plans
    The board's 2025-26 work plan, adopted in November 2025, sets three focus areas: specific park and facility projects, community education, and support for the PRCR System Plan, including the board's LDO-mandated review of land-dedication and payment-in-lieu requests on residential developments.
  3. Sept 2026 Parks and Admin Report PRCR Advisory Board
    Staff or committee report
    Staff's parks and administration report covers the ACCESS program's second annual Arts Market at Lazy Daze, the debut of the ACCESS Cary Zen Den, and fall program registration, which drew 9,000 sign-ups on its first day and had reached 14,500 by September 1.
  4. CA PRCR Advisory Board_9.14.26
    Staff or committee report Arts and public art
    The cultural arts report covers the Cary Film Festival's September return to the Cary Theater, the Fine Arts League's 31st juried exhibition closing at Page-Walker, and the fall lineup at the Cary Arts Center and Koka Booth Amphitheatre.
  5. PRCR Advisory Board Report - Downtown Cary Park - September 2026
    Staff or committee report
    The Downtown Cary Park report is a calendar of September programming, including weekly yoga and Tai Chi classes, the Saturday farmers market, a Hamilton movie night, and the Carolina Circus Festival.
  6. September 2026 PRCR Advisory Board Sports & Community
    Staff or committee report Public facilitiesSchools and education
    The sports and community centers report covers August activity at Cary Tennis Park, including the VEOLIA Pickleball National Championships, and at WakeMed Soccer Park, including three NC Courage games and a football jamboree featuring ten high school teams, plus a new 55-and-over mixed ladder league at Middle Creek Community Center.

Other recent meetings of this board