Continuing their work on the five-year master plan Thursday, the Kosciusko County Parks and Recreation Board heard nearly 500 people responded to the public input survey and they worked on the priority action program in small groups.

Michiana Area Council of Governments (MACOG) Senior Community Development Planner Donny Ritsema told the board he had the final results for the public input survey, which was concluded Jan. 11. The initial findings were shared at the December meeting with only 277 responses. Since then, an additional 220 responses were submitted for a total of 497.

“With that final push, we did also get more representation across the county,” he said. “ … So we did get a lot more responses in the smaller counties, the northern and southern regions in particular. So, we feel really happy that we had a lot more representation across the (county) and not just more focused in the Warsaw and Winona Lake area.”

By zip codes, 159 survey responses came from 46580, Warsaw; 74 from no answer/invalid zip code; 72 from 46582, Warsaw; 71 from 46590, Winona Lake; 46542, Milford; 46567, Syracuse; 18 from 46562, Pierceton; 12 from 46538, Leesburg; and 11 from 46510, Claypool. All other zip codes in the county were four or less.

The additional survey responses didn’t necessarily change the priorities in any fashion, Ritsema said, but re-emphasized and enforce what was already prioritized from the input survey back at the December meeting. He said it was good to know that everyone was in agreement with the additional submissions.

One question on the survey asked which parks did the respondent visit. Winona Lake Limitless Park led the results with 254, followed by Center Lake Park at 117 (Central Park…