Council greenlights construction design and development of Travers Park playground

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

In addition to swearing in new members and the mayor, the Sandpoint City Council voted to advance the Travers Park inclusive playground and splash pad at its Jan. 3 regular meeting — though not without some debate.

The agenda called for council to consider accepting the final schematic design of the playground and splash pad, and give the greenlight to proceed with construction documentation and procure the equipment needed to build out the structures.

However, prior to taking up the agenda, Councilor Justin Dick made a motion to table the item in order to give incoming Councilors Pam Duquette and Kyle Schreiber more time to get up to speed on the information contained in the council packet. 

Councilor Joel Aispuro seconded that motion, but Councilor Jason Welker — who was named council president later in the meeting — raised his concern about delaying the decision.

“Obviously there’s a lot of passion about it in the community,” he said, referring to a long season of discontent among many in the community who feel that both the Russell Sports Center and playground facility are unnecessarily expensive and disruptive to Travers Park.

“If we postpone the construction design phase of this any further, we risk getting into late fall or early winter,” Welker said, adding later that tabling it “does risk this project not being completed in 2024. We have a strict timeline here.”

Dick rescinded his motion to table after further consideration, noting that he had failed to fully take into account the overall construction schedule.

Park Planning and Development Manager Maeve Nevins-Lavtar provided a presentation on the project, telling councilors that while construction is planned to commence in the summer, prices for construction materials and labor are rising between 10% and 15% every three months, making time of the essence.

“There is a cost advantage to building this summer,” she said, adding that the crews already on-site could bid on the project, and benefit from the fact that they’re already mobilized. 

“In addition, I’m trying to order the equipment as soon as possible,” Nevins-Lavtar said.

Construction drawings are still being fleshed out and some changes are anticipated in the final design. Meanwhile, once the project goes out to bid it must follow the Buy America Act, meaning the city can buy off of government procurement lists that have already been vetted.

“The city will get the best price for this, plus we don’t have to lose money to the markup that a contractor will do,” Nevins-Lavtar said. 

As it is, the city is chipping in $561,000 for the playground and splash pad, with federal dollars covering the other 50% of the approximate $1.1 million price tag.

Nevins-Lavtar said “there’s still another step,” when staff will return to council and ask for permission to put the project out to bid. Mike Terrell, principal and landscape architect with MT-LA, which is working on the project, went on to say that design refinement and completion of construction drawings will happen before that. Officials will also need to review and incorporate the 270 responses to a survey on the project, then buy equipment and bid for construction. The first major work at the site will be the demolition of the existing restrooms at the park.

Terrell echoed Nevins-Lavtar’s estimate that the playground would be open for use in the fall of 2024, though, “It is unlikely that we’ll be able to open the splash pad when it’s warm enough to use.” Rather, that component is anticipated to be open for play around Memorial Day 2025.

Duquette applauded the design, which incorporates equipment and play structures designed to exceed Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. She also thanked planners for moving the playground site farther to the north, away from the parking area, which several community members had requested.

However, she expressed concern that the latest round of public comments hadn’t yet been reviewed or incorporated into the project — nor had she been given the chance to see them.

“That’s what I feel disadvantaged at,” she said, going on to underscore the importance of public feedback and support for the project.

“Travers Park has been kind of a nightmare for the community; I’d hate to see that continue,” Duquette said, adding that despite the amount of time that’s already been devoted to the project, she still felt the process was moving too quickly. What’s more, she questioned the necessity of the splash pad.

“It’s expensive. We have 9,000 acres of splashing water,” she said, referring to Lake Pend Oreille, and going on to point out that the amenity would be unusable during the winter months.

“I know you guys are really into this. I’m not poo-pooing it,” she added. “I guess I’m just wondering what a couple of weeks will impact.”

Schreiber, too, thanked planners for their work on the project, but also said he wants to see a “better, more focused design” and to send that out for public review. 

“At the very best scenario this is going to be finished right as the snow flies,” he said. “I think it’s much more important for us to get this right than to get it right now. … I don’t want the next time we address this to be ‘take-it-or-leave-it.’”

Likewise, several members of the public questioned the sense of urgency in getting the project moving toward construction. 

“I think we all know that two weeks isn’t putting this project at risk for being completed in 2024,” said Sandpoint resident Molly McCahon, who led protests at Travers Park in the fall, going so far as to chain herself to a mature willow tree slated for removal to make way for the Russell Sports Center.

Still others testified in favor of moving forward with the project, including lifelong Sandpoint resident Chris Owens, who underscored the importance of adding an inclusive play area not only for local kids, but parents, too. Owens uses a wheelchair after a logging accident 14 years ago, and told councilors that the support he felt from the community enabled him to move forward with his life. 

“I think that’s the real identity of Sandpoint — it’s not the nostalgia of certain places or how they look, but it’s the love and all the support that goes into this community and everything we do to help each other,” he said. “So I would just hope that some feeling of nostalgia doesn’t prevent certain people in the community from embracing those who either now have a difficult life or maybe were born with a difficult life.”

Speaking directly to the inclusive playground and splash pad project, Owens said that when he went to Travers Park in the past, he had to remain “close to my children but always from a distance, because I couldn’t get in there to swing with them — or, if I chose to go in, I better have someone help me get back out because my kids couldn’t do it.”

During closing discussion on the agenda item, Welker recognized that while the council had heard both sides of the issue, “This is old business; this is something we’ve been working on for a year,” then made the motion to move into construction design and development with a second from Aispuro.

Schreiber moved to amend the motion to include a design workshop at 60% completion, with a second from Duquette, but that failed with “no” votes from Aispuro, Dick and Welker.

“I’m just not quite comfortable writing a million-dollar check not knowing what we’re buying,” Schrieber said.

The motion to approve the design schematic and proceed with construction documents passed 3-2, with Duquette and Schreiber opposed.