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December 16, 2008

Commission hears park update

During Monday’s Woodward City Commission meeting, Architect Jim Hasenbeck gave an overview of progress at Crystal Beach Park. Literally.

In addition to just discussing the ongoing projects at the park, Hasenbeck brought along aerial photographs that were recently taken over the park.

These photos demonstrated how the baseball fields and the aquatics center’s pool are taking shape. They also revealed how the facade of Crystal Beach arena has been transformed with some fresh paint, brown bricks and a new green roof.

Following this visual overview, Hasenbeck provided the city commissioners with a timeline for the projects that are already in progress. He noted the new equipment building and the first phase of the arena project will be finished in spring 2009, while the baseball complex, Fuller Park, and aquatics center are all slated to be completed sometime during the summer.

In addition, Hasenbeck provided a timeline for two new projects for which bids are scheduled to be opened today. He said this water line project and the parking/landscaping project are supposed to both be finished by late spring.

With all these projects slated to wrap up soon, Hasenbeck also took time to look ahead to “what’s on the board.” Besides the water line and parking projects, he said the next big projects that will be focused on will be the golf course and the train.

In fact, Hasenbeck said that he and City Manager Alan Riffel have already begun discussions with representatives of the golf course on what issues they would like to see addressed, such as the modification to some holes and the irrigation system.

As for the train, the architect noted that the aquatics center must first be completed so that the existing pool can be removed to make way for a new and potentially longer course of track for the train.

Fortunately, work has been able to continue on the aquatics center despite bad weather, Hasenbeck said, noting that the concrete subcontractor for the pool was able to use insulating blankets to protect one portion of the pool bottom during last Tuesday’s snowstorm. When the weather brightened up last Thursday, the workmen simply removed the blankets and were able to pour concrete for that section of the pool, bringing it all one step closer to completion.

“It’s all moving along nicely,” Hasenbeck said.

In other business, the city commissioners approved a request to allow O. B. Gann to utilize four feet of city street easement to construct a car port on his property in the 1700 block of Broadmoor Drive.

The commissioners also approved a modification to the Fiscal Year 2009 interlocal agreement with the Office of Juvenile Affairs relative to the Community Intervention Center (CIC). The modification reflects an “increase in their (the CIC’s) award” from the Office of Juvenile Affairs, Riffel said.

“It’s a grant program and we’re just a pass through agency,” he said, explaining that the approval of the agreement modification is somewhat of a formality. “Although the amount changes, it has no impact on us.”

During his city manager’s report, Riffel noted that the city will probably see “several different improvements made in our court system over the next few months.”

He said these improvements, which include adding additional dates to the court schedule, should help the city better manage “an increase in volume of court traffic” that the city has been experiencing as the city’s population has grown.

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