{"id":91397,"date":"2025-10-24T12:43:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T17:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=91397"},"modified":"2025-10-24T12:43:32","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T17:43:32","slug":"city-commission-approves-new-massey-park-playground-equipment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=91397","title":{"rendered":"City Commission approves new Massey Park playground equipment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By ALICIA FEYERHERM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hays City Commission approved a playground equipment proposal for Massey Park during Thursday\u2019s meeting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Director Parks Jeff Boyle said the current playground equipment at Massey Park was installed in 2002 with a life expectancy of 20 years. Parts are no longer available and the equipment is in need of replacement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis unit, if not replaced, would need to be taken down,\u201d Boyle said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is coating peeling off the stairs. The plastic is faded and cracked, and one slide had to be completely removed because replacement parts were not available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s a disgrace,\u201d Mayor Sandy Jacobs said. \u201cIt looks dangerous to me. The bottom of those slides look difficult. I think we really need to address what\u2019s there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boyle agreed and reminded the commission that playgrounds are inspected monthly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat we have right now is passing, but it\u2019s passing barely,\u201d Boyle said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposal from Aspire 2 Play for $119,363.25 includes playground equipment, rubber chip fall zone materials, and plastic playground borders with an ADA ramp. The budget for this project was $120,000 and that budget was listed in the Request for Proposal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGive us the best bang for the buck,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cGive us the best playground you can give us for that money. So we did state that right up front, so we didn\u2019t receive $500,000 proposals.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over 20 proposals were received and reviewed by a committee of seven employees (two of which are playground inspectors). Each employee was given two votes and the Aspire proposal received a vote from every member of the committee. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so unique,\u201d Boyle said. \u201cIt\u2019s unlike anything in Hays.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The equipment includes enclosed rope structures at the top, tall spiral slides as well as separate, smaller equipment for very young children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was an overall winner by a landslide,\u201d Boyle said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aspire proposal was the Park Department\u2019s recommendation, but Boyle also provided an option from Miracle Recreation for $114,392. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Aspire proposal was approved unanimously with a 4-0 vote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to see that reinvestment into the very nature of what is childhood: playing at the park,\u201d Vice Mayor Mason Ruder said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking forward, the Commission will be further discussing the future of the parks in Hays during the Commission Retreat. Changes may be made at some of the smaller, less-utilized parks to reduce maintenance costs; however, Massey Park is one of the four parks identified in the early 2000s Parks Masterplan as a \u201cmain\u201d neighborhood park. Boyle said that those parks  (Massey, Sunrise, Seven Hills and Aubel-Bickle) should be kept up with nicer equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other items from the meeting included:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • Update from The Bricks in Downtown Hays<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Approval of a $145,022.22 bid for sanitary sewer cleaning and inspection\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Scheduling of public hearing for November 25 for the deannexation within the DK Ranch Addition<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • Update on Community Development Block Grant on Chestnut Suites<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    The next City Commission meeting will be at 4:00 p.m. on November 13 at City Hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By ALICIA FEYERHERM Tiger Media Network The Hays City Commission approved a playground equipment proposal for Massey Park during Thursday\u2019s meeting.  Director Parks Jeff Boyle… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":91399,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":false,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,11,3570],"tags":[14480,14249,2038],"class_list":["post-91397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-news","category-politics-news","tag-alicia-feyerherm","tag-city-commission","tag-hays-city-commission"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Massey-Park-New-Equipment.png?fit=936%2C628&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91397"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91401,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91397\/revisions\/91401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/91399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}