New playground equipment planned for Friendship Park

The Bethel Township Trustees have approved the purchase of new playground equipment for Friendship Park. A portion of the township’s American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding will be used to pay for the purchase.

Trustees approved a resolution authorizing the playground equipment’s purchase during their regularly scheduled meeting on Tuesday, June 4. Trustees approved a cost not to exceed $71,000 for the project, which will replace the current playground with similar equipment in the same location.

“It’s been there for quite a long time,” Trustee Kama Dick said of the park's current equipment. “They have looked at replacing it for the last several years, and we’ve just been piecing it together. We can’t continue to piece it up.”

“We’re essentially going right back with the same stuff we have there,” she said. “We’re going to put it back in the same spot.”

Friendship Park is located on Church Street in Brandt. Trustees are currently considering several different bids for the equipment’s replacement, Dick said, and no specific date has been set for the project.

The park is expected to stay open during the playground replacement.

“We haven’t said anything about closing the park,” Dick said. “I don’t think that’s an issue at this point; none of the vendors I’ve talked to have said anything about having to close it down, so I’m hoping it will stay open.”

She said that the new playground equipment will come from the township’s ARPA funding.

“We had a little over $200,000 left of those funds from Covid,” Dick said. “We’ve allocated about $100,000 of that money so far.”

“Our goal is to spend another $60,000 on a new truck for the fire department; they need a new EMS truck,” she said. “That leaves us with maybe $30,000 to $40,000 left. I think we’ll try to do some other things with that for the fire department as well.”