ECC playground in jeopardy of demolition

In an effort to keep a local playground running, the Creston Community School District offered control of the playground on the former Early Childhood Center campus to Creston Parks and Recreation. However, it’s unlikely the city board has the resources for continuous upkeep.

The acquisition of the park, built in 2019, was considered during last Tuesday’s regular board meeting. Discussions around the demolition of the ECC building located on 901 N. Elm St occurred during previous city council meetings.

If the city were to take ownership of the playground and convert it to a city park, that section would not be demolished. Otherwise the playground, along with the rest of the old ECC building, will be demolished in a total package.

John Kawa showed apprehension to the idea, noting the cost of maintaining the playground equipment when compared to other city parks which might require maintenance of their own.

“Plastic does deteriorate, and someone’s got to come up with a way to fix it,” Kawa said. “I don’t know if we have any budget money to fix things like that. We’d have to increase our budget; I don’t know how much.”

With the swap in owners, the school’s status as warranty owners and other benefits from being associated with the district would disintegrate. At this point, although the board members agreed of the playground’s significance to the local neighborhood, the budget is not ready to take the project on.

Still, the board had a willingness to discuss the acquisition. Generating a list of questions during the meeting, the board committed to discussing more logistics of the acquisitions with the school.

It’ll be a tight deadline. Kawa said, in conversations he’s had with Creston Superintendent Deron Stender, the district will demolish all sites sometime in June if there’s no bid for acquiring the playground by the end of the year.

In other parks and recreation news...

Efforts to approve a change order and pay application to JNC Construction were delayed after concerns were raised by the board’s city council representative Kiki Scarberry.

At the time of the meeting, no financial amounts were present for the two items concerning JNC’s work on McKinley Lake’s dredging. The board chose to delay a recommendation until those financial amounts were available.

Both matters eventually received approval, although not during Tuesday’s meeting. The parks board held a special meeting Thursday where they approved recommending both the change order (adding $220,000 to the lake project) and the pay application ($355,002.75).

Those recommendations will be made to Creston City Council.

Dylan Dornack, a Boy Scout working on his Eagle Scout project, approached the parks and recreation board for permission to use an area of McKinley Park. The Creston Youth of the Year said he’s raising funds and materials to build a dedicated fire pit for his troop’s annual flag retirement ceremony.

The above-ground pit will be 3 feet wide with a lid to discourage other forms of burning. The board offered advice on where this project could be placed, referencing a concrete slab close to the bandshell. Dornack was given the board’s blessing for the project.