Project concept approved, funding decision to come later

Published 5:30 pm Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Washington’s City Council, during its meeting Monday, approved the conceptual plans for the Havens Gardens Play Together grant project but held off authoring funding for the project.

The project would help update the playground at Havens Gardens to make it more accessible for disabled or handicapped children. The plans were developed by Cunningham Recreation. Those plans, according to Kristi Roberson, the city’s parks and recreation manager, required approval by the end of the month.

“The budget, actually, may change a little bit. When that does, it will come back to you, but I just need approval for the concept rendering that will currently have so that it can be approved by Trillium for a final project,” she said.

The city’s Recreation Advisory Committee reviewed the plans and recommended the council accept it. The plan includes input gathered at a Nov. 21 public meeting on the project. A $225,000 grant from Trillium Health Resources provides the money for the project. Implementing the plan carries an estimated price tag of $264,055.42, according to a project document. Eliminating some of the new playground equipment can reduce the project’s cost.

The equipment includes items such as an expression swing, crow’s nest (complies with the Americans with Disabilities Act), roller slide, merry musical, water sound panel and merry-go-round. The project also includes a custom-made sign to identify the waterfront park.

In other business, the council approved an agreement with Willie Allen (doing business as Outback Outfitters & Guide Service) to reduce the deer population by managing hunting rights at Washington-Warren Airport. Allen previously provided such a service at the airport. For a $500 annual payment by Allen, the city would grant him exclusive rights to conduct deer hunts on airport property for the years 2016 through 2020. The hunts, limited to bow hunters, would have to abide by the state’s hunting laws.

 

 

 

 

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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