August 30, 2021 at 10:29 a.m.
Council hears update on skate park project, baseball field renovations
Council hears update on skate park project, baseball field renovations
During the council's Aug. 23 meeting, alderman Tom Barnett offered an update on efforts to construct a new skate park in Rhinelander and city administrator Zach Vruwink detailed an effort spearheaded by the local Little League group to renovate the two Little League baseball fields at Hodag Park.
Barnett reported that members of the Over It: Rhinelander Teens for Skating group are diligently looking at ways to raise money for a park.
"There are options," Barnett said. "They can piggyback off the other not-for-profits in the area, as opposed to formulating their own 501(c)(3). That would save them a lot of time and money to start fundraising for the cost of the skate park."
He added that the group is formulating a plan as to what they want the park to look like and are working to determine a more definite cost for the project.
"They are also going to be doing a lot more community outreach to help them with sponsorships and fundraising," he added.
"Go skateboaders," mayor Chris Frederickson said in response to Barnett's report.
Representatives of the Over It group first reached out to the council in March seeking support for the construction of a new skate park.
The teens said that skateboarding is becoming increasingly popular among local youth and a skate park would be an open, safe space for them to get together.
"It's a designated place for us to be," Grant Garrow of Over It told the council in March. "Instead of being all over town, we could be in one area (that's) safe and where everybody knows where we are."
The teens noted that they are aware Rhinelander once had a skate park located behind the fire department and that plans for adding a skateboarding area to Hodag Park were removed when the final park plan was approved by the council.
After a second presentation was made in April, members of the council expressed support for the skate park idea and advised the group to keep working toward their goal.
For more information on the Over It group, visit their Facebook page.
As for the baseball-related project, Vruwink reported that Little League stakeholders have advised the city they would like to solicit community support for renovations to the two Little League fields in Hodag Park.
Vruwink stressed that this project doesn't represent a departure from what the council previously approved as part of the Hodag Park Master Plan.
"There has been some kind of an alignment and a re-energization, I think, amongst the Little League group in terms of fundraising and accomplishing this work," he said.
"It's my understanding there is not a financial ask of the city at this time, so that's really exciting," he added, noting that the cost of the work is estimated at $80,000 to 100,000 and the city doesn't have a budget for such a project.
He then asked the council to give formal direction to himself and city attorney Steve Sorenson to develop terms to be included in a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to be executed between the Little League group and the city.
The MOU will ultimately come back to the council for final approval, he added.
Sorenson noted that the work being discussed - re-grading and re-shaping of the fields - is catching up on "deferred maintenance."
"This is stuff that should have been done years ago and that's why the cost is probably higher than it normally would have been," he said, adding that the city has a responsibility to maintain the fields and not let them become dangerous.
"You can send a wrong message that we're creating brand new diamonds or creating a new system, building a new baseball field. That's not what it is," he said. "It's maintaining the existing fields."
Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].
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