BUCKHANNON – The Buckhannon Parks and Recreation Advisory Board has decided to focus on the City Park this summer with three top priorities.
The Parks and Rec Board gathered at the City Park on Park Street June 7 to evaluate priorities for summer 2023. The board agreed they should focus on the City Park first and found three items at the park to tackle first.
The board decided the white, Rotary pavilion in the back of the park needed a thorough renovation or to be completely re-established. The board also wanted to rework the existing basketball court to meet regulation measurements and clean up the trail system at the park.
“We talked about potentially saying goodbye to this pavilion; it has served the city well, and it’s on its way to 30 years — maybe it’s time we you do something more like our other pavilions,” Buckhannon Mayor Robbie Skinner said. “If someone wants to put some real good elbow grease into fixing this thing, I don’t know that we’re against that.”
Karl Boone and Kevin Hawkins with the Band of Brothers and several area churches volunteered to tackle the project, but they weren’t sure if they needed to start from scratch or not.
“It seems like it’s still pretty solid, but then again, you start peeling back layers, and that’s when you really see what’s going on,” Skinner said. “I’m actually impressed it’s lasted as long as it has because it was down at Jawbone, and then it got flooded on all the time, and then it got moved up here.”
Board member Scott Lampinen asked what they would want the pavilion to look like and what work should be done.
“I would say we want something like the other pavilions with metal and vinyl and a fence around it,” Skinner replied. “A power washer would do it good and then it would probably take a lot of the paint off, but it could use that anyway.”
Boone also recommended putting a metal roof on the pavilion, like the others at the park.
“We were really looking for the best longevity, what was going to be the least amount of maintenance, and I don’t think the other ones require a lot of maintenance at all,” Skinner said. “It’s not going to rot, so if you hit it with a pressure-washer occasionally, it’s fine.”
Skinner asked Boone and Hawkins to provide the city with a quote for materials, and they will start to order anything they needed to work on the pavilion.
Skinner said making the basketball court in line with regulations could be done this summer because it simply involves adding more blacktop.
“It’s just blacktop as long as we have the land flattened,” Skinner said. “We can probably get that done, and the court is used a good bit here, partly because it’s central. When I left my mom and dad’s last night and went out this way, it was like 10:30 p.m., and there were people playing basketball.”
Board members also noted if the court was regulation size, they could invite the Summer Basketball League to play there.
“We can also get the trails established – that’s an easy one,” Skinner said. “We can mark the different trails with signs, measure them and clean up the back upper end because it’s nothing but fallen trees.”
The city Parks and Rec Advisory Board works on an advisory basis, so their suggestions will be officially voted on once a recommendation is presented to the Consolidated Public Works Board. The Consolidated Board presidents over streets, parks, the city cemetery and more.
