Playground equipment in Washington Court House city parks is reopened and available for play, while the splash pad is hoped to be open on June 19, according to City Manager Joe Denen.
As previously reported, city park playground equipment was closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and basketball rims were removed following complaints in late March of local youth not following social distancing.
According to Denen, while parks are now open, social distancing is still encouraged.
“People need to be mindful that the coronavirus hasn’t magically disappeared,” said Denen. “We talked with the health department about what we should do with that equipment, and part of the issue there is you can’t sanitize it after each child uses it. Even if you wipe it down — let’s say the police sprayed that stuff down with bleach three times a day, if five minutes after you walk away a kid that’s infected with coronavirus sneezes on the slide, that’s pretty well pointless. So people need to be aware of that and exercise what I would call common sense.”
The city has two parks. One is Eyman Park located off Eyman Park Drive while the other is Christman Park located off South Elm Street. Both locations have basketball courts.
The new splash pad is located off Eyman Park Drive. A splash pad is a recreation area for water play that has little to no standing water.
The resolution that allowed the materials for the splash pad to be purchased was passed by city council in June of last year. As previously reported, due to delays in equipment arrival, the splash pad was completed later than expected.
Although it was planned to be open for the spring of this year, due to the pandemic, the opening was postponed.
According to Denen, the hope is the splash pad can be opened as of the 19th of this month.
Reach Jennifer Woods at 740-313-0355 or on Twitter @JennMWoods.
