The Jamestown City Park playground equipment has now been fully installed, according to Mayor Regena Hinton.
Hinton gave a brief update on the park at the March 17 regularly scheduled meeting of the Jamestown City Council, stating that the 6-foot fence — donated by Terry Stephens — has been put up and mulch has been put down by city employees.
“I don’t know if any [council members have] been over there, but kids are everywhere,” Hinton said. “It’s great.”
The playground equipment installation has “been a long time coming,” according to city councilor Barry Coffey, with the process starting in late 2021 under former Mayor Nick Shearer.
The City of Jamestown was able to purchase the equipment after receiving a matching grant through Little Tykes.
“The old playground equipment had been there a long time,” Coffey said. “People I’ve coached and seen grown up, they’d grown up on that playground equipment. It’s just amazing for us to get it. The community is excited about it. The Jamestown maintenance workers have done a really good job, and it’s all come together very well.”
There are two considerations the City of Jamestown is hoping to remedy in the near future regarding the new playground. The city will be working on getting bids for a protective net to go over the baseball field nearest the playground so that foul balls will not be an issue for children playing on the new equipment.
The city will also be tackling the restroom situation in the near future. The current restrooms have not been open in “maybe three years,” Hinton estimated, and finding a resolution quickly will be a focal point for the city.
She suggested that the city could work on getting those restrooms in order for the public to use and possibly renting portable toilets until that has been resolved, although no action was taken at the meeting.
