Near the conclusion of Mayor Stephen Haynes’ hour-long State of the City Address at the Brownwood Event Center Friday afternoon, he stated one of the questions he receives most is will Riverside Park and the Early Town Center one day be connected over the Pecan Bayou.

Haynes told those in attendance he plans to request that the City of Brownwood request a proposal to study the cost of the potential project.

“The short answer is, I don’t know yet,” Haynes said in regard to the two parks being connected. “The reason is because we don’t know the cost of doing that. Until we know the cost, the environmental issues, the corps of engineers regulations, all the things that go with it, we just don’t know if we can or we can’t connect the two parks. But there’s certainly an interest there and I think it’s a great idea.”

Haynes continued, “I love the fact that both parks have been improved and it’s silly to me that you have to drive around from one to the other. So I love the idea of connecting the two parks, but the devil’s in the details. And we will take the first step, hopefully forward, and ask for a request for proposal, find out in that study how much those things are going to be, and then hopefully next year at this point we can tell you if that’s feasible or not.”