Marina decking materials purchase approved

ROCHELLE — At its monthly meeting Monday, the Flagg-Rochelle Community Park District Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to approve bike path maintenance in a contract with Wyatt Pavement for sealcoating in the amount of $19,900.

Park District Executive Director Jackee Ohlinger said the work is already underway on the original stretch of bike path and Wyatt Pavement is doing "a great job." There is still 1-2 weeks of work remaining to complete the entire path.

Marina decking

The board unanimously approved a bid from RP Lumber to provide materials for new decking at Spring Lake Marina in the amount of $29,872. 

The project will include the complete replacement of the decking at the marina to match recent work at Spring Lake Pool. The work will be done by park district staff from Oct. 17 to Nov. 7. 

ABC Supply also submitted a bid for $25,945 to supply the materials that was rejected due to the fact that those materials would not be able to be delivered until the next fiscal year.

"Because of the delay in receiving the goods, I recommend we go with RP Lumber so we can get it done this fiscal year and in that timeframe this fall,” Ohlinger said. “It's the exact same material and look we used at Spring Lake Pool. I'll be happy to have that project completed."

Director comments

During her director comments portion of the meeting, Ohlinger said the city recently installed a new sidewalk along the creek on the southeast corner of Spring Lake Marina's parking lot for additional access from Lakeview Drive to Spring Lake.

Painting was recently done at the Senior League baseball field on the press boxes and dugouts. That field was the only one that didn't have paint work done back in 2016.

Winterization has started at Spring Lake Pool and work will be done to repair water leak issues. Financials from the pool's most recent year of operation are nearly finalized and Ohlinger said the facility operated at just under a $40,000 deficit.

"We budgeted for somewhere near an $80,000 loss," Ohlinger said. "Last year we were around $56,000. Each year we're getting a little bit better. I'm happy with that. Our maintenance expenses on staffing went down considerably and I think that's due to the cost of the pool robots. We don't have manual labor with that and we'll see a benefit from that each year."

Ohlinger said patrons parking on grass at parks continues to be a problem in the park district, especially during Rochelle Junior Tackle games.

"We're putting out more signage and working with RJT to try to address the issue," Ohlinger said. "It's really important that we keep our parks open and safe. Parking on the grass can kill the grass too and create ruts. It's important to have that open space as a park. We have an ordinance against it and we're going to try and enforce that."

To close her comments portion, Ohlinger said The REC Center currently has 2,290 members.

Aquatics

Chris Hartzog was introduced to the board as the park district's new aquatic and recreation supervisor. He started his position a month ago.

"I want to get to know you guys and the community inside and out," Hartzog said. "I really want to be in-depth in this community. My goal is to provide recreational programming that's beneficial for everybody."