During Monday night’s meeting of the Leitchfield City Council, Park and Recreation Director Tammee Saltsman talked with members about the potential of building a “sensory museum” playground at Beville Park.
Saltsman says that she has reached out to a company that is interested in making the city become a “demo” market. Due to this, the cost of the playground equipment would drop from about $75,000 to roughly $18,000.
She said that the primary goal of a playground like this is for children with autism and special needs. The facility would have multiple different stations that they could go to and visualize/use their hands.
An example of something offered is a “push pin,” which is a larger version of the pin toy that you can stick your hand on and it traces the outline of it.
If the council decides to move forward, Leitchfield would become one of only three cities in the entire state with a similar facility. One of the other two is Somerset which has sensory and wheelchair accessible equipment in its park that opened in 2018.
In addition to the $18,000 cost of the equipment, Saltsman projects that it would cost another $18,000 to add the foundation for the 1,500 square foot park.
To help offset the cost, Saltsman, with permission of the council, said she is going to be applying for a $25,000 grant from State Farm.
While in full support of the idea of the park, councilman Billy Dallas said, “We gotta watch how we spend our money… we don’t need to forget that we may have to put a freeze on anyone.”
The deadline for the grant to be submitted is next week, but the city won’t know whether they get it until the end of September.
In order to keep the discount, the city would have to send a purchase order to the company in the coming weeks.
The council tabled further discussion until a future meeting.
By: Sam Gormley, Local News
(Headline Photo: Sensory Museum Park located in Somerset, KY courtesy of WYMT)
