Q&A: Zygmant Aims to Shape Future of Athens-Clarke County Parks

Kimberly Zygmant is the new director of the Athens-Clarke County Unified Government’s Leisure Services Department. She began work May 26. 

Zygmant previously served as assistant parks and recreation director for Layton, Utah, from 2023 until 2026. Before that, she was assistant director of parks and recreation for Victoria, Texas; recreation facility manager for Asheville, North Carolina; Discovery Center coordinator for Ocala, Florida; and recreation leader for the City of Ocala Recreation and Parks Department.

Zygmant discussed her career during an interview in September.

Q: Coming into this role, what do you see as the greatest challenges facing local parks and public spaces today?

A: Some of the greatest challenges we’re looking at is just the use of them. How we’re using them. Are we serving the community in the best way with them? 

Needs are always changing. Those are just some of the challenges. How we’re using the space in our community. If we’re still relevant to the community. How we use spaces efficiently.

Q: What strategies do you use to gather community feedback and ensure local voices shape park development?

A: This is actually a big topic right now within my department. At the beginning of June, we had a master plan that was completed and accepted by (ACC) Mayor and Commission. 

Basically, this is where we are as a department right now. This is all of our facilities, this is the inventory, the assets that we have. 

We did a lot of different community input sessions during this, and we now have a five- to 10-year plan.

This is one of the many ways. We do surveys for people who are in our programs, but how are we reaching people who aren’t in our programs, and who aren’t using our facilities? Or, people who are using our facilities, and don’t know that they belong to leisure services. 

That’s a big one. Like Morton Theatre, that falls under leisure services. A lot of people don’t know that. Bear Hollow Zoo, Sandy Creek Nature Center, the Firefly Trail, Oconee Rivers Greenway, all fall under leisure services. 

So it’s reaching those people. We do public input in a variety of ways for a variety of different things. 

If we’re doing a new facility, we do a couple of focus groups. We do user groups, where we talk to current users for their input and elements that they would want to see in a new development. 

So, there’s some talking, there’s some surveys and we’ll put stuff out on social media.

Q: What’s the best part of your job?

A: My favorite part of the job has changed over the years, because I’ve had new and different opportunities, and with a different lens each time. I love our events. I love seeing the joy our events bring people. 

But where I’m at, I really love the strategic planning part. What’s the long-term vision of our department, and what’s the long term of how we’re serving the community? What is the community going to look like in five years? 

We are investing millions of dollars in these facilities every year. So, what will they look like in five years? Do we still have the same users? That’s really hard for us to decide, but I love thinking about it, and how big we’re going to be.

Comments edited for length and clarity.