Salem’s new Parks Director Kelli Pastore has been with the parks department as its recreation supervisor since April of 2023. (Photo by Morgan Ahart)

SALEM — Salem’s new parks director is ready to face the new pressures of the position as she leads the department into 2025.

“I love my job and the people I work with and for and my goal is to make our parks the best they can be,” said Parks Director Kelli Pastore.

While Pastore officially became the city’s new parks director in a Feb. 2 special meeting of the parks commission, she is stepping into that position with nearly a year of experience. A Lisbon native and 1996 Lisbon High School alum, Pastore has been with the parks department since April 2023 when she was hired as recreation supervisor, and previously served as interim parks director from November 2023 through January 2024 following the retirement of Shane Franks, and stepped back into the interim role in September following the departure of previous parks director Jacob Logan.

Prior to joining the department, Pastore earned a masters degree with honors in communication and leadership with a concentration in international and intercultural communication and leadership from Gonzaga University in 2017 and ran her own business “The Linguistics Assassin” for 13 years where she provided marketing and human resources services for small businesses. Pastore said that during the Covid-19 pandemic many of those small businesses closed, and that following the pandemic those businesses never returned to the same level prompting her original application for the vacant recreation supervisor position.

“I originally ended up with the department on accident,” joked Pastore.

Pastore said that it was her existing experience in the interim director position that prompted her to apply for the vacant position

“Shane [Franks] retired, Jacob [Logan] came and left, and I’d been doing the job as interim director for about eight months between the two [terms] so it just seemed logical to apply for it,” said Pastore.

Beyond her experience as interim director, Pastore felt that her experience owning and running a business would also benefit the department.

“The parks [department] are like a business you have to stick to a budget; you have to prioritize your spending based on what’s going to give you the highest return on investment. Although your investment in the parks is not monetary it’s about the feelings of the public,” said Pastore. “You also have to keep an eye on payroll and because our budget is so tight you have to know how to shop around for things and find the best price. [The parks] don’t have unlimited money, and once the money’s gone there’s no replacing it.”

Pastore said that she was excited to continue the work she’s already been doing in the interim position, but that the permanent position also brought additional pressure with it.

“It also comes with added pressure because certain things are my job to do now. As the interim I was still doing things that needed to be done, but larger projects had to take a backseat. Once there’s a new recreation supervisor there will be more time to dedicate to those things and looking for grants so that those costs don’t come out of our taxpayer dollars,” said Pastore. “We’ve been working on things like new pickleball courts, and redoing pavilions and that will all be funded through grants.”

Despite the added pressure Pastore felt she was well-prepared to lead the department, and that she had learned a lot about how to excel as parks director from watching and working with Franks, Logan, and former Parks Foreman Jim Grimm. She also said that she knows she can lean on the experience of those around her including the parks commissioners, and Parks Foreman Wes Bryan, and that, if necessary, her predecessors are also willing to offer their advice.

“I know I can call and lean on any of them for their experience because they know and love the parks and have their best interests in mind,” said Pastore.

Pastore said that her top priority as parks director was to get the department’s 1-mill operational levy renewed in May and increase awareness of how the department uses its taxpayer dollars, noting that the department wouldn’t be able to continue providing the services it does for residents without it.

“Without that levy passing there won’t be a parks department. The pool won’t open, there won’t be recreational programs, bathrooms won’t open, we would be mowing grass and that’s about it. Those funds are vital for all our programming and recreational activity, without [them] forget about anything extra, it just won’t happen,” said Pastore.

She also said that renovations at Centennial Park would be a priority, noting that it was “the natural choice for a starting point given the recent improvements to the pool and the $50,000 grant the department was awarded in collaboration with Salem Youth Baseball which will see baseball fields at Centennial revitalized.

“When you have part of it taken care of you want to take care of the rest,” said Pastore.

Those renovations are set to start with new paint on all of the pavilions and at swings and things, and the upcoming of equipment rental lockers. Pastore said that she is also working to secure grant funding to put new roofs on the pavilions and replace the concrete.

“We have some leads on different grants that I’m working on that will be finished in the next few months so hopefully by the end of the summer we’ll have heard more about those grants to see how we can make some big changes that won’t cost taxpayers anything,” said Pastore.

mahart@mojonews.com