Voters Can Choose a Champion in Metro Government's "Parks Madness"

As the NCAA basketball tournament gets underway, Louisville Metro Parks has unveiled a contest of its own. Rather than March Madness, it’s Parks Madness. Metro Parks has ranked 64 of its parks and matched them against each other.The champion will be up to the voters. While the tournament is underway, visitors to the Metro Parks blog can decide whether they prefer the number four seeded historic Hays Kennedy Park or the natural beauty of 13 seed Caperton swamp.Parks spokeswoman Julie Kredens says the hope is that area residents will read the analysis of each park, and discover new recreational opportunities.“When we do the descriptions of the match-ups in our analyses, we’ve been saying this has the basketball courts, playgrounds, this park has a fishing lake, walking trails,” she said. “And then the voters can decide which park is going to edge out the other.”Just like March Madness, Parks Madness pits some heavy-hitters, like Cherokee Park and Jefferson Memorial Forest, against smaller, lesser known properties. But because the winner will be decided by voters, Kredens says anything is possible“It may not necessarily be one of the bigger regional parks that wins this,” she said. “It could be the dark horse, could be a Cinderella story, a David and Goliath match-up, if you will. We might be very surprised with the ultimate park of the year.”Voting in several of the first-round contests is up on the Metro Parks blog.