We have had an amazing week here at the Parks Department! Lancaster Park is coming together beautifully, with many of the city departments and area businesses chipping in to do the work. We want to give a big thank you to Outdoor Concepts for donating their labor to plant ten trees and digging out the disc golf/foot golf holes for us. Using their equipment and workforce saved us a lot of time and helped stretch our budget. We truly appreciate our local businesses.
Another piece of exciting news that came to us recently is that the Caylor Nickel Foundation has generously offered to pay for street lighting on River Road that will improve both the safety of the street and provide a source of light for the Rivergreenway Trail up to the city limits at the red bridge. Trail counters from last year during the months of June-August alone showed 20,411 users, so we are thrilled to have visibility increased in this highly-used area.
The interurban trail that will connect Lowe’s to Lancaster Park, 3 Pickleball courts, and a new parking lot for the park will begin advertising for bids on Oct. 10. We are hoping to get the word out to multiple contractors, so if you know someone in the excavating/paving business, please have them look for this project. A pre-bid meeting will be scheduled for Oct. 24 at 11 a.m. at City Hall, and bids will be due Nov. 7. We want to send a heartfelt thank you to Diane Humphrey and Chip and Kim Mann, who sent donations to fund the new Pickleball courts.
If you have made it past the fair to the Rivergreenway, you may have noticed that the gazebo near the turn-around has been freshly painted, and the iris garden has had a fall cleanup thanks to volunteers from Days of Caring organized by the Knights of Columbus. The heirloom iris beds require a lot of work to keep the weeds down since we don’t want to use chemicals to spray them. We sincerely appreciate Andy Vogel, Twilia Herr, and Jeff and Jennifer Burns for hand-pulling each weed and giving the pavilion its annual coat of paint.
We also want to thank Bluffton Elks Lodge 796 for their recent donation to benefit children in our community. We received an order of brightly colored kickboards and flippers to equip our lifeguards to teach swim lessons. We give a lot of group and private swim lessons during the summer, so these will come in very handy.
Speaking of the pool, our attendance was 10,351 visitors for the season. This is down slightly from the previous year, with the unexpected cold snap at the beginning of the season. Even with the shortened season, overall income was up, but so were this year’s expenses due to rising costs. Pool expenses to date were $99,310, and revenue was $71,411.11. The pool house will be undergoing a facelift before next season with all new siding, and if all goes well, we hope to bring back the baby pool.
Next week has lots of events you won’t want to miss. Monday night has one more opening for the Hue Can Paint canvas painting for kids ages seven and up to paint a Halloween bat scene. The Free Senior Snippets classes kick off Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with seven different topics to choose from; call 824-6069 to register. Theater Thursday’s movie at the library will show “Dog” at 10 a.m., and that evening begins the first 5 in 5 5K events for runners and walkers at 6 p.m. For more information on these events, follow the Bluffton Parks Facebook page, visit the website at www.blufftonindiana.net, or call 824-6069.
Have a great week!
