ABOVE: Wear on the fixtures is evident at the Fairmont Skate Park, and Park Board members discussed what to do at their meeting on Tuesday.

FAIRMONT – The Fairmont Park Board held its first preliminary discussion regarding the skate park during its Tuesday meeting.

Public Works Superintendent Nick Lardy said the park, located at 425 Winnebago Ave., was built in 2000 with wooden fixtures and an asphalt slab on dirt. Now over 25 years old, he said internal discussions had taken place about what to do with the skate park.

“Why are we going to put $20,000 worth of new equipment on a piece of crap surface that you can skate, but it’s not very good?” Lardy said. “It is the number one complaint I get about that park out there.”

The skate park was built at the same time as the aquatic park, and Lardy said it had been thrown together rather quickly at the time.

Currently, the skate park is 100 feet by 150 feet. Lardy said they could easily cut that in half and still have a decent skate park, but the surface needs to be torn up and replaced. He said concrete has been recommended to provide a smoother surface.

For the concrete alone, Lardy said at half the size the park is now it would be $40,000 to $70,000. For a full-scale park, the concrete would cost $90,000 to $140,000. Because these are initial estimates done from more metro numbers, Lardy said it’s possible they could get a better deal.

Board Member Vicky Schulte said Sioux Falls has their skate park attached to their aquatic park, and she asked if the same could be done in Fairmont. Lardy said they did have some land they could potentially play with there.

On a general level, Board Member Randy Lubenow said a skate park would be used more if it were near the center of town than on the outskirts, like the current park is. Schulte agreed.

“I feel like there’s all those schools, there’s the soccer fields,” she said. “That area seems to get more traffic. It would make more sense to continue to build near those locations.”

The conversation then shifted to what could replace the park if it were moved from its current location. Earlier in the meeting, the Park Board voted to recommend not going forward with a project to tear up and replace the pickleball courts at Veterans Park.

With that in mind, Board Member Craig Nelson inquired whether there would be sufficient space to install pickleball courts where the skate park is currently located. Lardy said there could be, and he would look into it. Schulte agreed with that placement over a location like Charlotte Park, because there are already bathrooms attached to the Winnebago ball fields.

Board Chair Jodie Whitmore pondered why pieces of city entertainment infrastructure continued to face problems with age.

“You hear the [previous] pool, they didn’t take care of it, the pool died, and closed it,” she said. “Now, same thing with the dang hockey thing. Is there just no money to keep it up, or are we just looking at things as they deteriorate?”

Lardy said there’s only so much he and his staff can continuously monitor if they keep adding more to keep track of.

“We put so much new stuff in,” he said. “Every time you put in the new mini golf or a new whatever, something back here is getting left behind. We have the same number of people, same amount of equipment, and we have to follow that new stuff. It’s 25 years old, we should have probably looked at replacing stuff 10 years ago, especially if it’s wood.”

As only three members of the board were present, Lardy said he would make inquiries based on what was pitched and bring his findings to the board next month when more members are expected to attend.

In other news:

— Whitmore said she walked with the Rotary Club on a trash-collecting mission through the bike paths. While one of the trails had some garbage near the end, Whitmore said they were happy to report little to no garbage on most of the biking trails in Fairmont.

— The condition of the mini golf course was brought up in tandem with the skate park. Whitmore said pieces of the outdoor carpet used for the green have come out, making it harder to use. She asked if there was something that could be used that would last longer than carpet. Lardy said part of it comes down to installation, while Lubenow recommended finding some turf. “Maybe find a college or something that’s replacing their astroturf, buy a bunch of it, and then you can put it on there,” he said.