Work on Mounds Park in Monongahela may resume in September

By ERIC SEIVERLING
eseiverling@yourmvi.com

Monongahela residents and children looking forward to using the newly renovated Mounds Park may have to wait a few more weeks to see its completion.
After a summer-long delay with paperwork put the park’s completion on hiatus, Councilman Rusty Polonoli announced at Wednesday’s council meeting that he hopes work on the park begins again during the first or second week of September.
Last night, Polonoli said a shade structure that hasn’t been approved by Washington County is the cause of the latest holdup.
“There isn’t anything you can do when you get the county involved,” Polonoli said. “Everyone knows how difficult it is to get everything ordered and brought in.”
Work at the playground has been dormant for three months as it awaits for new equipment to be installed.
Originally slated to open in May, the park’s completion has been up in the air due to paperwork and contract delays.
In June, Polonoli said he was alerted by the Washington County Redevelopment Authority that the park’s contractor, an employee of playground equipment supplier GameTime, didn’t have enough insurance liability coverage required to start the project.
Once the contractor’s insurance coverage was corrected, it took additional weeks for the county to submit the order to the contractor.
Funding for the $145,713 playground comes from a federally funded Community Block Grant secured through Pennsylvania’s COSTARS community purchase program.
Construction for the park came to a halt in early spring, when the park’s new $11,500 fencing was installed.
Once completed, the park will feature a $69,000 dual-function monolith, a $27,000 pavilion, an ADA-compliant merry-go-round, a buck-a-bout, a new swingset, a dinosaur saddlemate and a volcano climber. The park will also feature exercise equipment for adults.
In other news, council awarded the bid to Rostraver Township-based Robert Hannan Flooring to install new flooring inside the Monongahela Senior Center. Cost for the project is $17,883.74.

To read the rest of the story, please see a copy of Thursday’s Mon Valley Independent, call 724-314-0035 to subscribe or subscribe to our online edition at http://monvalleyindependent.com.