The Rocky Grove playground could get a facelift in 2022.
The regular meeting of Sugarcreek Borough Council was held Wednesday evening, and the playground was the focus of the bulk of the conversation.
Borough Administrator Joseph Sporer said he’s received several complaints from residents over the past six months regarding the playground, which he added: “has been in some disrepair over the past five to six years.”
At this point, stressed Sporer, “this is just in the preliminary stages” as it’s too late this year to do any work on the actual structures and surfaces themselves. But, he added, now is the time to start planning.
“I believe it’s time that we handled this,” he said.
Sporer said his goal is to tap into the Samuel Justus Charitable Trust grant, administered through PNC Bank and open to both government entities and nonprofits for programs, projects, education, and outreach. The next deadline to apply for that grant is Aug. 1.
While seeking permission from the council to look into that funding source, Sporer said he also hoped to seek support from local service organizations.
The project, Sporer estimated, will likely come to around $150,000, of which he felt the borough could expect to be responsible for around $75,000.
He added that he’d looked into whether money forwarded to the borough as governmental COVID-19 relief could be used, but he understood that the project would fall outside the scope of that funding’s purpose.
Borough Solicitor Brian Spaid advised the council that the church “is not really required to pay any money” toward the light’s upkeep.
Sporer said the light would be added into the borough’s street lamp account, at a cost that he thought “can’t be any more than $25 or $30 a month.”
Council will return to a pre-COVID format at its July meeting.
“Unless we get a variant or something happens, I think we can all come back together up here,” council President John McClelland said.
The panel’s next regular meeting will be at 7 p.m. July 7, with a public meeting planned one hour prior at 6 p.m. to hear public comments on the Community Development Block Grant process.
