PLAIN CITY -- After discussing how to get the ball rolling on Pioneer Park, council members want to get started with a specific design for the park so they can apply for grants.
Councilwoman LaFray Kelley, who has been working with the parks committee, said the city could get started on the nine acre Pioneer Park one of two ways: with utility hook ups, or with the design.
She said the city should think about setting up a donation program.
This would make it so people could purchase trees and benches with plaques for Pioneer Park.
Kelley also said she was concerned that a splash pad may just be too expensive for Plain City to put into the park after researching the costs of the splash pads in Riverdale and South Ogden.
She said it could be more than $200,000 to put in a splash pad and that did not include the cost of maintenance.
"It depends on how we do it," said Councilman Brett Ferrin.
"Theirs is much larger than the one I looked at in Providence."
He said he felt a splash pad more in line with the one in Providence may be affordable.
Kelley said a splash pad with just five features would be around $69,000 and said the splash pad, if put in, would probably be done in the last phase for the park so the city has time to think about it.
"We could look at how Providence did it," said Kelley.
Kelley said current plans reflect a leisure park area for the front of Pioneer Park with a buffer of trees, and the back area for a sports park.
Councilman Brent White said the city does have funds to put into the park, and said they have more than the $100,000 budgeted.
"We have to be careful with impact fees and how we spend them," said White, "but we do have funds that are actually allocated for parks."
"I think we need to get to that design phase so we can talk about applying for grants and other things," said Ferrin.
"Apply for RAMP grants. We know we won't get them all, but we have to have a design," said White.
He said the city is much more likely to receive grants if they can show a design with the grant applications.
"We don't want to wait too long," said White. "It's going to be October, I don't think we have to be physically turning dirt down there, but if we have a plan we are more likely to get money."
Mayor Jay Jenkins said the design for Pioneer Park should be an agenda item during council meeting before they can actually go forward with the design.
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