Grand Island: Splash pad contract put on hold

By Karen Carr Keefe

Senior Contributing Writer

The Grand Island Board on Monday voted to pause the town’s contract to build a splash pad in Veterans Park, due to concerns over a lack of funding.

Supervisor Peter Marston was excused from attendance at the afternoon workshop.

The four council members present voted to suspend the contract for a week, until Monday’s next Town Board meetings.

Marston did not respond to the Island Dispatch’s request for comment before press time.

Council member Dan Kilmer made the motion to put the purchase order on hold.

“I think we should put, at the minimum, a pause on the order until this board makes a decision on the way forward,” Kilmer said in the discussion leading up to the vote.

He said his concern was that the town OK’d the purchase without Town Board’s approval.

“If we were in the loop every step of the way … we would have said ‘no’ six months ago or we’d have said, ‘proceed forward,’ ” he said.

Kilmer later added, “This does not mean a splash pad’s dead. (It) means it goes on the shelf and we start looking for grants and ways to finish financing it.”

Council member Jose Garcia seconded Kilmer’s motion, saying, “Put it on pause. Find out where they’re at. Find out if it’s scalable.”

Garcia had earlier suggested that costs might be reduced by installing a smaller, scaled-down splash pad.

The contract for the splash pad is with Vortex Aquatic Structures International Inc. The funding for the pad was designated as part of a $1.1 million grant awarded to the Miracle League, whose ballfield and nearby playground are on town property. The grant was awarded to the town by Erie County through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to counteract the negative economic effect of COVID. The remaining funds need to be used before Dec. 31, 2026, the town’s chief accountant, Korin Frantz, told council members.

The town has an additional $220,000 for the project from a bond resolution that was approved Aug. 5, 2024. The bonding was sought in case the grant funds were inadequate to cover splash pad expenses.

The Miracle League used the first part of the grant to make improvements to the adaptive ball field and playground it operates in Veterans Park. That work is completed. About $477,000 is left in the grant for the basic splash pad, whose cost is now calculated at $708,000, said Council member Rhonda Diehl. An additional $74,594 would be incurred to make the splash pad operational – adding water, wastewater and electricity – which would increase the cost to $782,594.

If you apply the available funds of $697,000 (from the remaining grant funds and the bond) toward the cost of $782,594, the shortfall is $85,594.

“That gives us a usable, nice-looking splash pad,” Diehl said.

She added, “In the Parks Trust fund, we have $170,000-something; not (a) big number. So, we can pull that ($85,000) out of there to cover that cost.

Marston had itemized additional potential expenditures for the splash pad in his presentation to the board on May 4, and these are not included in the numbers Diehl presented on May 11.

They include:

•Additional perimeter concrete, over and above what the vendor would provide: $170,000.

•Sidewalks compliant to accessibility regulations: $170,000.

•Fencing: $40,000.

Diehl said she hoped that there is credibility to word of a possible donor who could pick up these additional expenditures and complete the whole project.

“My concern is that this has been two months and we knew nothing about it,” she said. “And then to find out about it, it's a little concerning to me that maybe we know about it now because the donor might not be solid.”

Digati said the Miracle League would be the entity to follow up on enlisting a donor to help fund the project.

Council members also said they wanted to know about operational and insurance costs, and the possible need for additional employees.

“I'd like to know those answers before ready to vote on spending anything,” Garcia said. He also asked, “I mean this was before my time (serving on the Town Board), but did these people ever make a presentation or explain what the splash pad was?”

Digati answered, “That vendor is on state contract. So, that's why this never went out to bid and never was all able to be done.”

Kilmer said that even though it was a state contract, “You’d have to take it back to the board.”

Garcia said, “The fact that we can make this work does not cure my ire. This one’s caught because it’s a massive issue, right? How many things are happening that we don’t know about. That’s the lack of confidence that I have now in how things operate here.”

Kilmer said he would contact the vendor for an update before the May 18 workshop and regular Town Board meeting.