Trending
ELKINS -- The county's new pool and splash pad will feature a slide for smaller children next year.
The Randolph County Commission approved a change order for the county's pool/splash pad project Thursday during its regular meeting at the James F. Cain Courthouse Annex.
The change order is No. 16 for the ppol/splash pad, which was completed this spring and opened on Memorial Day weekend as the Randolph County Community Pool and Splash Pad at the Elks Lodge.
The original plan was for the pool to have two slides, one for older kids, and one for smaller children in the shallow end of the pool. Issues came up with delivering the smaller slide to the site, however, so the commission decided to go in a different direction.
"We have two slides for the pool, a big kids slide that has already been installed, and a smaller slide," said Commission President David Kesling. "They had some design issues with the little kids slide that we've been waiting on, which is supposed to go in the shallow end of the pool."
Kesling said he recently learned that the company the slide was ordered from, was still waiting on a redesign from the manufacturer.
"Getting the original one is not going to happen, because they are still having to redesign it," he said. "They had some different slides and we had three options. One was a frog, one was a bear, and something else that would go with our woodlands theme."
The plan change allows the county to purchase a new slide immediately, instead of waiting on a redesign of the original one. Kesling pointed out that the slide still won't be ready to install until next swim season.
"Things still have to be fabricated and it won't be this season," he said. "The slide that is on our change order is a nice-size bear. It will be standing beside a little log that the kids can go down into the shallow end of the pool… It's a bigger slide, a more impressive slide. Of the ones we can get at this time, they all cost about the same."
Kesling and Commissioners Chris See and Cris Siler voted unanimously to approve the change order in the amount of $15,074.22. The money will be taken from the county's coal severance fund.
"That coal severance line will slowly be going away since there are no longer any coal companies in the county," said Kesling. "But we had anticipated and planned all along, that money we get from the taxes from coal would go to help pay for the pool. So we have that in reserve."