New playground toys were chosen by tough critics: Kids themselves.
Veterans Memorial Park will be getting new playground equipment soon, chosen with the help of experts — the children who will play on it.
The redesign was the result of an innovative cooperation between the city Public Works department and teachers at Discovery Elementary School. Children visited the site, consulted with engineers and designers, used class time to do the math and debate the merits of different playground toys.
The upshot was a vote by the City Council last Monday to spend $256,384 to install the system the kids liked best, an all-in-one climbing structure made by Playcraft that looks like an overgrown gazebo merged with a treehouse — with a starship thrown in — and plenty of slides and ladders.
“I’m a 30-year teacher retired from the Peninsula School District and this is one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen for an entire community project to come together,” said Ben Lieurance, a member of the parks commission, during the June 13 council meeting.
Officially known as Kenneth Leo Marvin Memorial Park, the 5.57 acre park is located at 3580 50th Street Court in the Midway neighborhood. It’s mostly flat and ringed by trees, with a soccer field, a restroom and a covered picnic area with tables. It has one play structure, a sort of jungle gym with ladders, climbing bars and a slide.
Lauren Jarvis and Brenda Ortiz, two Discovery Elementary teachers who focus on problem-based learning, have been working with their students and incorporating this project into their normal classes.
“It was so interesting to watch them,” Ortiz said during the meeting. “They had the opportunity to look at some blueprints of the playground area.”
The students narrowed down their choices to three designs, including a crab trap which looks like a small shed built from ropes, and a netplex, which was a complex structure built from many ropes. Ultimately the students decided upon the Playcraft option, the most versatile of the three, which includes two slides and a classic-looking playground.
The kids liked the different elements of challenging movement, as well as the flow of the play with a series of climbing and connecting events. it includes cables, elevated climbers, steppers, twister and wave slides, a disc swing, play panels, and toadstool-shaped balance steppers.
This contract allocates $251,384.47 with Allplay Systems LLC for site preparation, playground equipment, and surfacing installation. Council also authorized the public works director to enter into a professional service contract for up to $5,000 for material testing and an additional $20,000 for unforeseen conditions.
This expenditure was included in the 2020 Parks Development Budget.
The installation will include three musical instruments, ruggedized for outdoors — a marimba, a percussion harp and contrabass chimes. All are percussion instruments that will have attached hammers.
Council also discussed the option of adding a $55,000 giant roller slide, but decided to wait until the overall parks budget becomes more clear. A roller slide is a very long, inclined slide made up of closely-spaced metal rollers, like an industrial conveyor. The kids loved it, but it would put the project slightly over budget.
This project was made possible through a combined effort from the city, led by the former parks manager Nicole Jones-Vogel.
Jones-Vogel, whose final day working for the city of Gig Harbor was Tuesday, gave a presentation during the meeting on the program that brought the parks and the kids together.
“Who better to help us pick out playground equipment than our youth?” Jones-Vogel asked.
Council discussed the possibility of taking a similar route for future projects, an example being to use the high school students to help design a football field.
In other business, the city council:
Listened as both Mayor Kit Kuhn and City Administrator Bob Larson said their goodbyes and praises to Jones-Vogel. It also heard a proposal from Council Member Le Rodenberg (Gateway, July 16) to form a committee to survey staff morale and investigate the cause of the city’s high turnover among key staff.
Listened to staff reports, including crime statistics by Police Chief Kelly Busey, in which crimes in the city have gone down compared to 2019.
Approved and authorized the mayor to execute a purchase/remanufacture contract for a centrifuge gearbox for $38,438. The city of Gig Harbor Wastewater Treatment Plant uses the gearbox at the plant’s centrifuge. The gearbox was originally scheduled for remanufacturing as early as 2017, and has far exceeded its service life.
Went into executive session, then passed a resolution to use $527,541, which was included in the 2020 budget, for upgrades on IT-related hardware issues, to increase cybersecurity.
This story was originally published July 22, 2020 at 12:00 AM.