City council discusses new playground coming to Ballinger Park, pandemic relief money

The Mountlake Terrace City Council during its June 17 work/study session learned about the design proposed for the new playground at Ballinger Park.

Recreation and Parks Director Jeff Betz presented the council with a proposal that is part of ongoing improvements there. The playground is designed to be inclusive, universally accessible and will be located near the boat launch on the park’s eastern side.

To determine what playground equipment, elements and themes should be included, city staff held discussions with the Recreation and Parks Advisory Commission (RPAC) and the Neighborhood Park Improvement Subcommittee (NPIS). The city also sponsored virtual meetings earlier this year to gather additional public input including from community stakeholders with disabilities.

The city then asked playground vendors to submit designs based on the various feedback it had received. Seven design ideas were offered and then further evaluated by staff, RPAC and NPIS, which selected an option from Great Western Recreation as their top choice for the project.

That design includes nearly 6,300 square feet of play space to be located along a planned trail. That trail will connect the park’s boat launch area with its northern parking lot by the Mountlake Terrace Community Senior Center. The design incorporates universal design guidelines with seven principles for use: being equitable, flexible, simple and intuitive, with perceptible information, a tolerance for error, low physical effort, size and space.

The proposed playground features a blend of three popular themes expressed during the public feedback process. Those include a train theme, which is meant as a nod to the area’s past with the Interurban Railway and its future with the Lynnwood Link light rail. Play equipment also incorporates a boat theme with sails in relation to Lake Ballinger and water activities. The design features many natural elements such as frogs, fish, bees and ducks to reflect the park’s natural landscape around the playground.

The playground would have a capacity of 48 people and be able to accommodate more than 30 individual play events. Those include 17 elevated play components, 15 of which are considered accessible by transfer under ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) guidelines. It also features seven types of ground-level components including a rocker, spinner, ADA swings, family swing, musical instruments and a net climber — with eight pieces of equipment being ADA accessible. In addition, there will be Braille signs and a smooth surface on the playground.

A presentation of the playground’s design featuring graphics of the many different pieces of proposed equipment can be viewed here.

Construction costs for the playground would be nearly $611,000, the majority of which is funded by two grants the city has received for the park’s waterfront improvement project. The remaining $111,000 would be paid for by park impact fees.

Several councilmembers said they were looking forward to the city having a new playground and also commended Betz for obtaining the grants to fund it. Councilmember Erin Murray said she was “excited to have a destination park in our community.”

The council will vote at its next regular business meeting June 21 whether to award the playground contract to both Great Western Recreation and the King County Directors Association, which is a purchasing cooperative operated by Washington State Public School Districts.

In other business, City Manager Scott Hugill gave the council an overview of the approximately $6 million in COVID-19 pandemic recovery funds that Mountlake Terrace will be eligible for under the federal American Recovery Plan Act of 2021. That money would be received in two phases, with half coming this summer and the second installment arriving roughly a year later.

Thursday’s discussion was meant to prompt councilmembers to start thinking about how those funds can be used and what they then might like to do with them. The financial relief is meant to support public health agencies’ response to the pandemic; stimulate the economy through assistance to households, small businesses and nonprofits; aid impacted industries; provide support for essential workers; and make investments in infrastructure including water, sewer, and broadband services.

Hugill told councilmembers that he would first need their approval to submit the paperwork for receiving the relief money. He noted that unlike the previous CARES Act of 2020, the new program gives recipients more time to spend the money. The funds would need to be obligated by the end of 2024 and then spent by the end of 2026.

Hugill said that cities can expect the state to allocate some of its own relief funds to address public health and housing issues. Due to the timeline for spending the federal money, he recommended the council consider using it to fulfill local needs not being addressed by the state and county in both the near-term and medium-term.

One near-term need he suggested as a top priority would be to help fund nonprofit food banks to address food security in the community.

The City of Mountlake Terrace also needs to address a shortfall in utility revenues from residents unable to pay during the pandemic, the city manager said. The unpaid balance on utility accounts is nearly $777,000, which Hugill said will be difficult to recover in the near-term through a repayment plan. Using the relief funds to address that revenue shortfall could help keep the city on schedule for replacing water infrastructure elements, he noted. The city may have a difficult time securing loan financing for infrastructure if that utility revenue isn’t replaced, he added.

A less-immediate possible need Hugill mentioned would be to help return money to the city’s general fund. The city provided a $1 million subsidy to the recreation fund last year to cover revenue shortfalls caused by COVID-related shutdowns.

He also recommended the council hold discussions about medium-term regional needs such as housing, social services and regional infrastructure with the neighboring cities of Brier, Edmonds and Lynnwood. Hugill said that possibly using some of the relief funds in partnerships to address areas of shared regional concern could provide long-term benefits and reduce future costs to the community.

Ideas which garnered the most support during the council’s initial discussions were for assisting residents in need of help with food, utilities and rent.

Councilmembers were in unanimous agreement that Hugill should submit the necessary paperwork to receive the money. He told them that after doing so, there would then be further discussions later this summer about using those funds.

In other business, which will appear on the consent calendar for Monday night’s meeting:

–Subcommittee recommendations were made for reappointing to the Mountlake Terrace Arts Advisory Commission (AAC) two members whose terms are expiring, and making one interim appointment each to the AAC and RPAC for replacing members of those commissions who resigned.

-An update was provided on the Civic Campus redevelopment project, which is nearly complete. Staff are in the process of moving into the new City Hall this weekend.

-Reviews of amendments to two professional agreements for services related to the Civic Campus project were provided. One would see ARC Architects get $48,000 in additional funding for construction administration and support services. The other would provide FSi Engineering with approximately $4,000 for services related to commissioning the project’s heating, ventilation and air conditioning system.

The city council will hold its next regular business meeting Monday, June 21 at 7 p.m. It will include a public hearing and adoption of engineering details and specifications and associated code changes. A review and approval of contract for utility billing and contract processing is tentative. See the agenda and information for watching/participating online here.

— By Nathan Blackwell