SALYERSVILLE – The Ramey Memorial Park pool opens this past weekend, with more exciting news coming out of the park.
With every opening season, it’s a big process of reopening the pool, and this is actually the first year in a long time they’ve done without their longtime Park Manager Ray Keeton, who has recently retired from the position.
Magoffin County Judge/Executive Matthew Wireman told Mortimer Media Group they are looking at how to fill that void, and also use resources to make some improvements to the park and pool.
“The mayor and I and some members of the park board had some discussions, and we felt it was better to just start administering different parts of the park through our different governmental entities rather than try to hire someone else,” Judge Wireman said. “It saves money and creates ways to put more money into the park if we’re not paying salary. What we’ve done and the park board has agreed through their meetings that the county judge’s office will run the pool and the pool operations and the city will handle mowing and upkeep of the park, so that’s where we are right now.”
Judge Wireman explained that after their evaluation, there were some leaks that had to be addressed. He said they’ve been trying to find the source of the leaks for a long time, going through several vendors, but he believes they’ve found one that has fixed the leaks, noting the leaks were significant, in the past costing thousands of dollars in water loss.
At press time, he said right now they’re trying to get the temperature of the pool up to a comfortable number, stating he hopes there is enough sunshine this week to warm it up.
Also still on the wish list is a new splashpad to go where the kiddie pool has been, but is in disrepair. Judge Wireman explained that they have the splashpad through the design phase and have quotes, so they have everything needed except for the money.
“This is not a cheap thing to do,” Wireman said. “We have a splashpad designed that would be a recirculating one, because there are two options. One is the water comes straight out of the city water system and runs through it and then runs straight back into the septic system. That seems like a big waste to me, so we had to look at a recirculating treated-type of process so we’re not wasting 25,000 to 30,000 gallons of water a week. And that cost is in excess if $300,000. We thought that we had a real good shot of a certain funding source, but I’m not sure if that’s going to materialize, so we’re looking at other avenues. There are other grants out there we can apply for, but any time you’re dealing with the federal government and those grants, the process just takes so long that it could be anywhere from 18 to 36 months before we ever get the money, so we’re trying to look at a more expedited way of getting some type of grant for the pool to get that to happen.”
The pool is opening this Saturday, June 7 and the pool is going to be open every day of the week this summer. Monday through Saturday the pool will be open from noon until 5 p.m. They’re looking at reserving an occasional Saturday for family days, but would like some public input on that idea. Parties are reservation-only with two-hour windows and will be available Monday through Saturday from 6 to 8 p.m. and 8 to 10 p.m., and Sundays 2, 4, 6 and 8 p.m. People can call the judge’s office at 349-2313 for more information or to book the pool for a party.
They’re also looking at adding some more amenities in the coming days.
On the other end of the park, the new playground is completed, but is not accessible because weather conditions have not allowed them to finish the parking and entrance area ready. They’re hoping to be able to have a company grade and gravel those areas and remove any remaining hazards in the next few days so it can officially open this weekend, a well.
“It’s technically not open yet and we are highly discouraging children from being on it because it’s still a construction area,” Wireman said. “The playground itself is complete, it is safe, but the area around it is still being worked on. We’ve had a lot of wet weather and the ground there has not had anything on it – it’s been grass – so this spring with the weather, it’s extremely soft, but we hope with the dry weather this week we can get the leveling and to grade done and get it at least graveled so it’s at least safe to get across in the coming days. If we get that done, we’ll go ahead and open it, and plan a big grand opening when we can get the asphalt on the surface.”
