Officials replacing playgrounds at Petaluma parks

The city is swapping out aging, metal and wood play structures for modern equipment at parks.|

Josh, a Petaluma resident, stood nearby on a recent afternoon as his 2-year-old son Jax bounded back and forth across a flexible wooden play bridge at Arroyo Park on the city’s east side.

The structure near their family home has been a go-to playground for years, he said, featuring the kind of metal-meets-wood elements the 36-year-old recalled from the play structures of his own childhood. Yet even as Jax beamed from ear-to-ear, the father would still stop every few minutes to check his son’s palms.

“He likes it – he has fun,” said Josh, who declined to give his last name. “But he does get splinters.”

Installed more than 30 years ago, a wood-and-metal playground at Petaluma’s Arroyo Park is the city’s latest play structure heading for a major facelift.

The Petaluma City Council on Monday approved a plan to spend $106,786 to install a modern playground at the park, located off Village East Drive in a neighborhood southwest of the Petaluma Municipal Airport. It will be the 13th play structure replaced across the city, and follows a similar project at Meadow View Park completed in March 2015, according to a city report.

Annie Davis, publicity coordinator for the Petaluma Mothers’ Club, said her group was lauding the city for the gradual replacement of aging playgrounds. The club counts nearly 400 Petaluma mothers as members, some of whom have given input on the Arroyo project.

Metal features of some older playgrounds become hot to the touch during the summer, she said.

“These new, modern playgrounds not only provide safe spaces for our children to play, but they also foster a sense of community for children and their parents,” Davis said.

Some elements of the aging play structure at Arroyo Park have already been removed due to safety concerns, according to a city report. The playground being replaced is the larger of two older-style play structures at the park, and is sized for 5-to-12-year-old children.

While still considered safe, the playground was showing its age, said Ron DeNicola, Petaluma’s parks and landscape manager.

“We chose Arroyo this time because, literally, the wooden posts had started to rot out,” he said.

The installation of Arroyo’s new play structure is expected to wrap up in January, he said. Supplied by Santa Rosa-based Ross Recreation Equipment, it will feature two towers, a bridge, slides, a shade roof and a spinning “seat pod” accessible to the disabled.

The playground will use components similar to newer play structures elsewhere in the city, which will simplify maintenance, according to the city report.

The site of Meadow View Park’s previous playground sat vacant for more than four years after the city removed it due to underlying rust, DeNicola said. The installation of a new play structure there in 2015 was Petaluma’s first playground replacement in at least a decade, after money, including developer fees and grants, reached a level large enough to replenish a fund used for those purposes.

“It’s been an ongoing program,” he said.

Four play structures in Petaluma - at Grant, McDowell, Miwok and Anna’s Meadow parks - are still slated for eventual replacement, according to the city. Most of the money for the Arroyo project will come from the playground fund, with $6,786 from other city parks funds.

“We’re hoping we’re going to be able to at least get one more done in the next 18 months,” DeNicola said.

Playgrounds at Bond, Wiseman, Kenilworth and Westridge parks are slated to eventually receive new ground cover as a safety upgrade and to improve wheelchair access, DeNicola said.

While not involved directly in the decision to fund the playground replacement at Arroyo, Beverly Schor, chairwoman of the city’s Recreation, Music and Parks Commission, said the city’s move to invest in those facilities was worthwhile.

“Our parks are well-used by kids and adults alike. They are a wonderful refuge from urban congestion,” she said, adding that “as our city grows, our parks become important social centers.”

DeNicola said the city plans to keep the Arroyo Park playground open until shortly before demolition, with installation of the new structure expected to last a few weeks.

(Contact Eric Gneckow at eric.gneckow@arguscourier.com. On Twitter @Eric_Reports.)

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