The Park equipment in City Park is approaching 20 years old
and we have seen our second failure with a slide in the past 3 years. The majority of the equipment is heavy
polyurethane plastic. It is very durable
but when it fails there is no repair. A
replacement is needed. The slide that
recently failed is a triple slide known as a big-foot slide.
Replacement parts are available and with any park equipment it
is rather expensive. Almost half the
cost of this replacement part is shipping from the factory. With shipping the replacement bigfoot slide
came to about $5,200. The city council
agreed to this purchase using reserve funds.
The current parks capital budget in intended for new features and using
those funds diminishes our ability to establish them. Using reserves allows the replacement to be
funded from another source however the council would like to see funds budgeted
for replacement equipment. A line item
will be applied to the 2018 budget to help fund these types of needs.
The replacement slide has been ordered and will be installed
upon its arrival. It is unclear when
this might be received but based on the last replacement it will likely be here
in 3 to 4 weeks.
