At yesterday’s Easton Town Council meeting, the Park Advisory Board (PAB) delivered its final recommendation for disc golf at John Ford Park. As expected, the recommendation remained the same as before: surround and criss-cross the park’s meadows with wide fairway lanes and large circular greens to support an 18-hole disc golf course for tournaments to be managed by the disc golf company that originated the proposal last year.
In my view, the PAB’s transparency regarding the project’s evaluation process was dismal. There was no announcement or communication to the neighborhood regarding this being in the FY26 plan. It was included as a single sentence buried in the plan with no explanation. Prior to its inclusion in the plan, there were no hearings or outreach discussions with the neighborhood (Ward 1) to gauge interest. There was no environmental impact assessment and, in fact, the PAB does not seem to have any of these critical resources at its disposal, as demonstrated by its final report, which lacks quantifiable criteria.
When the annual plan was presented to the Town Council in November 2025, a question was raised about the impact to JF Park from implementing such a large disc golf course in a small neighborhood park. The PAB Chair said this: a disc golf course “does not impact in any way” the existing park. The Council voted to approve the PAB FY26 budget based on this testimony. Clearly, the process lacked sufficient professional evaluation.
The PAB has no experience with disc golf, and members have commented that the course will likely be underutilized. There was no outreach to the County for potential disc golf locations; the budget for building and maintaining an ADA-compliant, complex 18-hole course has been underestimated; there is no plan for the parking surge that will be inflicted upon the neighborhood (JF Park has no parking area); and the impact on wildlife and human life in this beautiful, tucked-away open space has been totally ignored.
Project opponents were told last night that we should be happy that the planned Woodlands Park will have a large meadow that all can enjoy. But why destroy a living meadow we already have when the disc golf course could be planned within the new, larger park that hasn’t begun construction?
Easton appears to be desperate for tournament play and the promised surge in tourism. There are promises to evaluate the impact over the coming year, and I encourage citizens to communicate actively with the PAB and our Town Council as we see issues such as player-visitor conflicts, damage to the meadows, parking issues, and other likely negative impacts.
We deserve a Park Advisory Board that understands the value of protecting our few remaining open-space sanctuaries, not cramming ill-planned “amenities” into every possible place.
Lance A. Simon
Easton
12 Responses
I would encourage your readers to review the PAB findings at easton.md.portal.civicclerk.com/event/1266/file/attachment/9685 paying special attention to the correspondence with folks from Caroline, Worcester and Wicomico Counties and how their disc golf courses are received and their opinion as to whether or not they are beneficial. You would be hard pressed to find any negative remarks about the courses or the disc golf community in general.
Thomas thank you for your reply. You appear to be thinking that my comments are about disc golf. They are not. As Co-Founder of Friends of John Ford Park I can tell you we have not once make a negative comments about the sport of disc golf. From everything I’ve learned about it I think it’s great. That is 100% NOT the point of my comments. We are trying to save the meadows at John Ford Park as an open space sanctuary from athletic amenities of any sort. We believe there are other spaces where disc golf can fit into the existing or planned park spaces in an excellent way. We believe that the destruction of the meadows at John Ford Park is an irreversible tragedy for our neighborhood that has valued the peacefulness and naturalness of this space for many years. My comments have NOTHING to do with disc golf.
Within the Delmarva region, there are probably a dozen courses that share similar properties to John Ford Park – Brandywine Creek State Park in Delaware plays through many acres of meadowlands and across a river. The wildlife in the area can often be seen along the course, and in summer the pollinators and birds are out in force. White Clay Creek State Park, Bellevue State Park, and even smaller courses like Schumaker Pond, John Walter Smith and Trap Pond it is not uncommon to find herons and waterfowl, deer, and other local fauna during your rounds just off the fairways.
The environmental impact of a disc golf course is minimal, as responsible design philosophy states that care should be taken to integrate the course with its surroundings, with minimal modification and disruption to its surroundings, which the Park Board has done a good job verifying. For example, walking trails and the disc golf course fairways would share the space through the meadows, only marginally increasing the area that needs to be mowed from what is currently maintained for the walking trails alone. To claim otherwise is a mistepresentation of the data presented by the Park Board. From experience, a disc golf course will not change the character of the park anywhere near what a sports field might. In many cases, you might not even notice it’s there aside from the baskets dotted along the landscape.
Most disc golfers like myself consider ourselves to be stewards of our natural spaces – we treat courses we play as if they are our homes and often take time to clean up as we play. Disc golf in John Ford Park is an exciting prospect to bring more attention to this beautiful park, and I’m excited to see what the next year brings.
Kyle thank you for your comments. Have you reviewed the disc golf course design? Have you walked the actual course as proposed? If you have done these things there is no way you IMO you would be stating that “the environmental impact of a disc golf course is minimal” since all disc courses are different. The proposed JF Park disc course design has a MAJOR impact in surrounding and the criss-crossing the JF Park Meadows, destroying the open space meadow landscape.
We have proposed a course design that saves the meadows — it is publicly available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1lAYdHgu88_reQ5jBTuXnV40clYUfHLZX/view?usp=sharing.
Did you know that nine-hole courses with Long/Short tees are being built at roughly TWICE the rate of 18-hole courses and make up a very large share of newer installations? Multiple tee pads (“shorts” and “longs”) are a common design approach, especially on smaller 9-hole properties such as JF Park because they create additional layouts without requiring more baskets. Course design guidance specifically recommends dual-tee designs when space is limited. Take a look. We remain open to discussing this highly reasonable middle ground proposal with anyone who will listen.
According to Google Search, here is some pertinent information-
John Ford Park- 58 acres
Brandywine Creek State Park- 951 acres
White Clay Creek State Park- 3,650 acres
Bellevue State Park- 331 acres
Clearly there are major differences in size. As importantly, there are major differences in the nature of John Ford Park and its value to the residents as a respite from urban life and a place of natural beauty. Simply put, John Ford Park is a gem right in the middle of an ever growing urban bustling town.
The report provide by the Park Advisory Board to the Town Council doesn’t seem as though it has the ability to truly evaluate something like the impact a disc golf course can have on a meadow. Would it not make more sense to evaluate the meadow with an Environmental Impact Study (a highly detailed, scientific study to figure out if a project will harm nature—like local water, air quality, rare plants, and wildlife).
The Disc Golf Report provided to the town is a general project evaluation. While it mentions environmental impact as something to watch during a trial period, its main goal is to see if a disc golf course makes sense for the town. It looks at things like parking, costs, and community popularity.
When an Environmental Impact Study is done, expert scientists, engineers, and researchers are involved. They do deep field research, collect soil and water samples, and write technical guides before anyone is allowed to build. This Disc Golf Report was put together by a local town Park Advisory Board and town staff. Instead of deep scientific tests, they used a basic 15-point scoring rubric to grade different parks.
Instead of doing all the environmental studying beforehand, it suggests building a temporary course first and tracking any environmental impacts as they happen over that trial year. Yet, no plan is in place on how the meadow will actually be monitored. Who will do it? What criteria will be used? What will be considered valid observations?
It seems the town agrees disc golf is fun and Easton should have one, but disagrees about putting the course in the only public meadow in Easton. Should this site be studied more quantitatively and by experts before moving forward?
Link to the report:
https://acrobat.adobe.com/id/urn:aaid:sc:VA6C2:bafe841a-1ae7-462e-91e4-b7e39b56c2de
Link to the web site the report can be found on:
https://www.eastonmd.gov/129/Agendas-Minutes
It is still not clear why the town council does not have a direct role in governing our parks. If the town can fund something, it can defund something, or at least ensure that all parties have their say and meet in the middle. I really feel our concerns were ignored by the parks board. We were certainly blindsided by the announcement at Tuesday meeting that the deal was intractably done. Could someone have made this clear from the start? Going forward, friends of the park should definitely have a role in the planning process and oversight of the installation of the disc golf equipment and its operation. If all parties are in it together, perhaps we could avoid more surprises.
The Town Council did have a role. They approved both the budget and the Parks Plan which both mentioned the course. Sounds like your Ward 1 Council Representative may not have paid close enough attention to either document or did not consider disc golf to be an issue.
I was very disappointed to learn the decision to allow Disc Golf at John Ford Park was a “slam dunk” without input from the residents of Easton (via our town council representatives). I have always supported Mayor Cook and her administration, but I feel they have abandoned the residents of Easton in approving this, based entirely on the approved budget and Park Goals. After all, who of us really combs through these documents. At the very least, I believe posting of signs at the park about upcoming changes should have been automatic. I also believe some courtesies/notifications should have been extended to the Ford family before this change was approved.
I appreciate the input from our Town Council members who voiced their surprise and who spoke about being blind-sided with loopholes such as this that are now in place for our town that are allowing projects to slip through the cracks without proper Town Council oversight. Easton is a unique town, and we deserve better and clearer representation.
And let me not forget a special thank you to Ms. Curry for her time and support.
I agree. I live at the trail end where the disc golf course is going to be placed. It is really close to our homes. I was invited by Ms. Ford to attend the Council meeting, and I thought some sort of vote was going to take place. I was very surprised to learn that one line in the budget made it a done deal. Ms. Curry expressed her surprise at this as well. I really hope that the PAC considers the local residents, environmental impact and benefit of open space over the next year. The criteria that were used on the survey had nothing to do with the concerns the neighbors have. As others have said, disc golf seems to be designed for a much larger area.
This sadly teaches me that I cannot trust the members of our own town council. Shame on them for totally misleading so many town members . They made us believe we had a say . They decided for us last year .
The disc golf (flying plastic) vs. gorgeous meadow (nature’s gift) thing has really blown up here! I would bet there are good intentions on all sides of this debacle. What concerns me is the lack of communication to the TOE residents especially those in the nearby neighborhoods and regular rail trail users. The other baffling issue is that many of us expected that there would be a vote about this issue. Why did we expect that? The chatter for at least 2 months has been, “when will the council vote, this month or next month?” I never heard that this was a done deal and it was already authorized by way of budget approval until last Tuesday’s council meeting. I wonder why this was not revealed in May? If this plan was already approved then why did it appear to be up for negotiation? Why was there a sales pitch for it back in May? Maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention but I thought I was. I guess this is an example of why there is a feeling of being, “blind sided.”