By Sherry Carrera
The Cypress City Council agreed over the mayor’s objection to approve the highest-cost option for renovating the executive conference room, while discussions continue around the timeline for upgrading aging playground equipment across city parks.
Mayor David Burke disagreed with funding for the measure, suggesting the conference room should not take priority over new playground equipment for kids.
He said the extra $85,000 for the raised ceiling could have been used to provide sunshades for residents at city parks. The workshop was held to debate two options for conference room renovations.
There are no formal votes taken at workshops, which are covered by audio recordings only.
The executive board at city hall is rarely used or visited by the public, it is mostly used for executive sessions of the Council and staff where the public is excluded. Even when the public is allowed to participate in “workshops” held in the room, there is limited or no seating provided.
The more expensive option includes raising the ceiling height of the room, adding wood accents and floor-to-ceiling cabinets for storage. The council majority voted for this option while excluding the addition of the larger cabinets in order to save costs.
The raising of the ceiling alone adds an estimated $85,000 to the cost of the renovations, to which the Mayor specifically objected, according to an audio recording of the workshop.
Burke in the workshop spoke out in opposition to the increased spending for the conference room due to there being higher priority items for residents.
“I understand that is not the way the wind is blowing because this is a room of people who use this room. I’m not comfortable going that amount for something I don’t think is essential when talking about another $80,000,” Burke said.
Burke later proposed in the official council meeting to get park renovations on the budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year after it was previously pushed to 2026-27. Burke mentioned Cypress playground equipment is past its average shelf life of 15 years, a majority of the equipment being 17 or 22 years old.
Burke provided photographs to the rest of the council of one of the oldest Cypress parks, Maple Park North which showed signs of aging and cracking.
“We’re fortunate to be in a city like Cypress, where we have good financial management overall, and we have resources to dedicate to improving our parks like this. I think we should do it a little more rapidly than replacing them every quarter century,” Burke said.
Council member Scott Minikus commented about concern over the budget saying, “we’re gonna have to give something up to give something back. So how do we determine what we don’t do to shift the money towards the playground equipment?”
Frances Marquez, former Cypress city councilmember, made various public comments during the following June 9 session where she expressed concern over the safety of city park slides. Marquez recounted going to Maple Park North after the previous council meeting and discovering a gaping crack at the top of the slide.
“When I pushed the piece of plastic down, I thought a little kid’s leg could stick in there and they could go forward on the slide. So I hope you reconsider and just please make it a priority. The residents are the priority,” Marquez said.
Others in attendance for public comment were inspired by Marquez’s impassioned plea and advocated in support of park renovations on top of their planned comments.
Bob Youngsma, a longtime Cypress resident, briefly spoke in favor of updating park equipment after stating parks are usually not a priority to him.
“We don’t need to build a Taj Mahal or a fancy office before we take care of safety and the parks,” Youngsma said.
The final renovation to the conference room voted on by the council, minus the floor-to-ceiling cabinets will cost taxpayers approximately $575,000, city officials said during the workshop.