The city will provide free water for the new splash pad in Liberty Park for its first three years of operation.
In exchange, the Kewanee Park District will remove sludge from the Windmont Park lagoon and work toward taking over over maintenance of West and McKinley parks.
Those were the terms of an agreement between the city and the park district approved Monday by the City Council.
The measure passed on a 4-1 vote, with Councilman Mike Komnick dissenting. Komnick said he felt the arrangement lacked transparency, and Kewaneeans wouldn’t know how much the water for the splash pad was costing the city.
City Manager Gary Bradley said he’ll be happy to provide the council an annual audit of the actual costs of providing the water.
Bradley said the “true cost” of providing the water is lower than what a water bill would be.
“Making that little bit of water doesn’t actually cost us that much,” he said.
Bradley estimated that there would be savings of about $7,000 a year for the city if the park district took over maintenance of the city parks.
According to a “memorandum of understanding” withthe city, the park district will “negotiate terms that are agreeable for the Park District to assume maintenance responsibility of McKinley and West Parks for a term with the upward target of the City assigning or ceding the Parks to the District over time.”
The memorandum added, “The city and park district agree to devote resources to ensure the success of any agreements” laid out in the memorandum.
The agreement also calls for the park district to spend $50,000 over the next three years to remove sludge from the Windmont Park lagoon.
Parks Director Andrew Dwyer told the council Monday that most of the sludge comes into the lagoon as silt from the two city storm sewers that flow into it.
Dwyer said both the city and the park district will benefit from the agreement.
“I fully believe that this is in the best interests of the taxpayers,” he said.
Komnick, however, said he would prefer separate agreements between the city and the park district on the splash pad water and the maintenance of the two parks.
Councilman Chris Colomer disagreed. “You’re adding more burden on the taxpayer by doing it that way,” he said.
Mayor Gary Moore also expressed his support for the arrangement between the two units of local government, saying he is “very excited” about the cooperation between the city and the park district.
***Copy has been edited to correct an earlier version of the article that stated the Kewanee Park District had made a final decision about maintaining the two Kewanee Parks. The park district is still studying the proposal and has not reached a final decision.
