Thurmont begins replacing park equipment     

By James Rada, Jr.
Thurmont Dispatch News Editor

THURMONT, Md. – Cut metal posts at ground level are all that remain to show where spring-mounted animals once wobbled back and forth in the Community Park. A sliding board in the upper park has slipped away. Other parks will lose their jungle gyms.

It’s the first phase of the Town of Thurmont’s effort to replace some of its older and worn-out playground equipment.

“As a result of the inspections that were done to our playgrounds, we’ve got a whole laundry list of things that need attention,” said Thurmont Commissioner Wayne Hooper.

“We asked for this inspection to police ourselves and this is what we came up with,” said Board President Martin Burns during the Jan. 31 commissioners meeting. He said the town was taking a proactive approach to its playground upkeep.

The list includes the replacement of nine pieces of equipment in Community Park, East End Park and Ice Plant Playground. The free inspection also lists some maintenance needed at the town’s parks, such as replacing swing chains and mulching around the equipment.

“If you follow those recommendations in total, the maintenance portion in inconsequential,” said Town Clerk/Treasurer Richard May. He said the maintenance amounted to less than $500.

The cost to replace all of the playground equipment noted in the inspection is about $24,500. Most of that cost is for a $15,106 playground set for the Lower Community Park.

Commissioner Ronald Terpko said, “That’s not a lot of money. I thought it was going to be an awful lot higher, considering the cost of stuff we replaced and bought.”

He said he expected the cost to be around $45,000 and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn’t.

According to Hooper, the new equipment will have lifetime warranties on many of the parts. This will help reduce future replacement and maintenance costs.

The town’s parks capital budget has enough equipment replacement money to make all of the suggested changes except for the Community Park playground set. However, some funds will need to be shifted between line items to put the amount of funding toward the parks that need it.

Burns said he believes the town could get Maryland Program Open Space funds to pay for the playground set, and perhaps, some of the other equipment.

As the commissioners work out how to allocate their park capital funds, town public works employees have already started removing the equipment to be replaced. The commissioners decided that even if the playground equipment is not immediately replaced, it needed to be removed for safety reasons.

Terpko said removing the equipment now, “would give you a little bit of time to get some of that stuff replaced before spring really hits.”

Burns has also said he would like to replace every fence around every town park field in town, but no decision has been made about that yet.