FAIRMONT– The Fairmont Park Board held its first meeting of the season on Tuesday and its agenda included an update on a number of projects in the works.

Street and Park Superintendent, Nick Lardy, started the conversation by sharing that the Veterans Park shelter house project is on hold pending some more investigation on its foundation. The park is built over the former high school that burned down.

“We did five test holes to test for footings and got down three feet and hit lead pipes and bricks and cinder blocks. The whole foundation and everything else is buried there,” he said.

He said that, per a board member’s request, he has asked for quotes for some canisters and new water fountains at the dog park, which he will bring to the board at a later date.

Lardy also touched on the surface replacement at the Adventure Playground at Gomsrud Park which took place in the fall after the Park Board’s last meeting of the season. He and several other board members commented on the refreshed look of the park since the resurfacing.

“Another one for the CIP (Capital Improvement Plan) for 2025 is the Sylvania Park Bandshell restoration next steps,” Lardy said.

The board had previously indicated that fixing up the bandshell is one of its areas of focus, especially considering that it turns 125 years old in 2026.

“Next year will be the final phase of that,” said Lardy.

During his update to the board, Lardy said that his crew began mowing this week and that both pickleball and tennis court nets are up.

“The rental shelters are pretty much ready to open. We might look at that next week,” Lardy said.

He said that the water has been turned on at most facilities and noted that all of the public docks are in.

“We did not get a lot of picnic tables and benches painted this year. I think we did about 80 tables and 40 benches. We got the real bad ones done,” Lardy said.

Community Education and Recreation (CER) Director, Stephanie Busiahn, also provided a report. She said that CER’s summer brochure, which is strictly digital this year, is live online.

“We haven’t gotten too many complaints about it being digital,” Busiahn said.

While she did not talk about specific contents of the brochure, Busiahn did note that CER’s popular park playground program will kick off June 10th and run through August 8th. It utilizes a different park in the city four days of the week.

“We’re trying sand volleyball this year. I’m starting my third year and we have not had sand volleyball in that time and I think prior to that they took a hiatus due to Covid so it’s been a bit but we are seeing some interest,” Busiahn said.

She encouraged interested people to either call the CER office or go to its webstore and indicate what nights of the week would work best so that they can determine the best night to hold it.

In other news Busiahn pointed out that the CER office schedules different city facilities and shared that usage is up from last year

“From July 1 of 2022 to June 30 of 2023, those facilities were utilized 8,669.17 hours. Looking at July 1 of 2023 to June 30 of 2024, we already have 11,051.5 hours of usage,” Busiahn said.