Park $ set aside

Haynes Park will be getting new playground equipment.

Portland Park Board agreed Tuesday to encumber $30,000 to go toward purchasing new playground equipment for the park in 2025.

Board members asked street and parks superintendent Matt Shauver to get an updated quote for the equipment at their last meeting.

Park officials have discussed in the past replacing the yellow and blue playground on the north side of Haynes Park near its center pavilion. Signs of wear are evident on the structure, such as the missing bridge that once connected two pieces of the set. 

Plans call for a new Smart Play system Motion playground from Landscape Structures. Aimed at children ages 2 through 5, it features a curved slide, inclined tunnel and various interactive components, including shape-sorting tables and bongo, bead and alphabet panels. The quote also includes two bucket seat swings and two regular swings.

Although not included in the original quote, plans are also to fence in the playground area.

Measuring at 55 feet by 40 feet, the new equipment won’t fit in the space currently occupied by the current playground.

“There’s just not enough space when we get what we need from the slide, say, to the fence,” explained Shauver. “It just (doesn’t) fit.”

He noted there’s room for the playground closer to the southeast corner of the park. He pointed out it could be a more beneficial location, with the other playground and parking in close proximity. Shauver mentioned that parents often watch their children play on the playground from their vehicles.

He again pointed to the state of the playground near the center pavilion.

“It needs to be done, the playground equipment there is sad,” he said.

The process would involve Portland Street Department employees removing the existing equipment and filling the area in with top soil and grass seed. As for the new location, PlayPros of Kokomo will be doing work, including pouring concrete for foundations, assembling the equipment and conducting a final inspection. Street department employees will finish out the project by spreading pea gravel around the area.

The equipment is priced at $29,030. Shauver noted there’s also a $10,160.50 cost for PlayPros to install the equipment.

Park board president Brian Ison explained the department has $30,000 in its park street materials account, which hasn’t been utilized in several years. Shauver noted parks department used to receive $40,000 in the account years ago and said he requested bumping the allocation back to $40,000 in next year’s budget. He shared concerns about using the fund for the playground, pointing to needs in the near future to do paving work throughout the parks.

Ison suggested the board encumber the $30,000 for purchasing the playground equipment next year. The remaining dollars would come out of the capital fund.

“We really don’t have that smaller play equipment for that age, 2 to 5, and this is one of those pieces that we feel that we can add to our park,” said Ison.

Park board members Jennifer Weitzel, Michael Brewster, John McFarland and Ison, absent Shauna Runkle, agreed to encumber the funds.

Also Tuesday, park board agreed to cancel its next meeting, which had been scheduled for Nov. 5. Park board will meet next Dec. 3. (The meeting would have fallen on Election Day.)

Board members also OK’d meeting on the second Tuesday of September in 2025 to avoid a scheduling conflict with Portland City Council’s meeting that day.