The Winston Park playground will receive one new piece of equipment, while another piece will be repaired.
Girard City Council members approved the improvements on the playground, which Girard City Administrator Gary Emry called a “safety issue.” Emry provided council members with two options for dealing with the problem slide: replacing the slide with a new version, or putting in a totally new, but smaller, play station. Emry said the current model of slide had been discontinued.
Council members unanimously approved the first option, with Councilman Richard Cussimanio stating “I don’t want to go with anything smaller.”
Emry said the city would pay for the improvements from the parks capital outlay fund, which currently sits at $8,700 for the year. Emry did say that the improvements would push renovations to the city pool back into next year’s parks budget.
Cussimanio said he wanted the city to look at increasing pool fees to cover a portion of the maintenance, which will include painting, adding new signs and adding a hot water heater.
In other business, Girard City Council members:
• approved 26 utility extensions. Twenty-three of those extensions were for residents’ first or second extensions, while three other people visited with the council asking for their third utility extensions.
“I think this is an indication of the economic times in the area,” said Girard Mayor Maurice Harley. “I think we will see people continue to struggle with utility payments. It’s a trend we will probably see continue for a while.”
• approved Janet O’Brien’s 24-hour Cereal Malt Beverage application for the Class of ‘79 Scholarship Fund to hold a beer garden from 4 p.m. Oct. 3 to 1 a.m. Oct. 4 at 111 S. Summit.
• discussed progress on the Low-to-Moderate-Income survey. Councilwoman Susan Thom said they were able to visit several of the targeted residences and were able to get all but one to reply to the survey. Emry said the door-to-door efforts had paid off so far — the city’s LMI population jumped from 35 percent to 41 percent. Thom said the city would receive a weekly update to gauge the city’s LMI rate.
If the city reaches a certain LMI percentage, it would become eligible for different types of grant funding.
Any households that do not fill out the survey have their income counted as above LMI, damaging the city’s chances.
• approved allowing John Keller to replace some of the sidewalk in front of his property at 126 S. Ozark, at his expense. Keller expressed an interest in looking into a potential program to replace curbing next year.
Harley said council members liked the city’s current program to replace residential curbs, and added that they wanted to look into a similar program to replace curbs on commercial properties in the future.
Emry said the estimated cost of materials was $2,000, a figure the city would pay half of if the property were a residential property. Emry said he wanted to make sure residences had the first crack at the $10,000 set aside for residential sidewalk repairs, but said if there was money left over, the city could look at allocating some of that funding to help with Keller's project.
• discussed a $2,600 bill the city received from the area Haz Mat unit that responded when the city was dealing with a recent leak. Council members agreed to look into the bill more.
• went into a 30-minute executive session for contract negotiations.
Kevin Flaherty can be reached at kevin.flaherty@morningsun.net or by calling 231-2600 Ext. 134.
GIRARD —
