The City of Yuma is moving ahead with playground and skate park upgrades at City Park, but is holding off for now in regards to installing a splash pad.
The Yuma City Council held a special meeting last Wednesday, February 26, to discuss the park-related projects. Mayor Tim McClung, and council members Dan Baucke, Terri Frame, Marc Shay and Vanessa Dischner were in attendance. Jerome Benish and Zach Diaz were absent.
Following discussion about the playground, the council’s consensus was to move forward with a contract with GameTime. Approval of the construction contract was on the agenda for this past Tuesday’s regular meeting.
Total cost for the playground, including a new surface, is more than $400,000, including installation.
The council was told city crews will remove the current playground and footers, saving $6,000 doing it instead of GameTime.
Council and staff opening it up to others to come get the current playground equipment if they want it. The same for the current skate park. It was suggested to advertise it on a first-come, first-served basis, and set a deadline that the equipment has to be removed by a certain date, or the city will have to take it out.
As for the splash pad, Wells told the council had the price had increased significantly since the original quote, stating she was told the initial figure did not include installation.
She told the council the staff is not getting a good feel if it will be a good use of city funds at the higher price. She asked if it could be put on hold for now, noting the city soon will have a swimming pool architect hired so it would be good to wait for their input. (Selecting a firm to provide professional planning and design services for a swimming pool was on this past Tuesday’s agenda.)
The council agreed. Frame noted other communities have splash pads and would like to get some feedback from them.
The splash pad was going to go over the old kiddie pool at the swimming pool. Baucke noted that putting new concrete over old is not a good idea.
The council agreed to hold off on the splash pad and get more input before moving forward.