Park Board denies Community Builders

The Williston Park Board denied a request Tuesday night to dedicate .8 acres of property for Community Builders to build a playground at Western Star Park.

Under the proposal Community Builders would be responsible for raising the money and building the equipment to safety standards. After the playground was finished, it would be turned over to Parks and Recreation for upkeep, maintenance and insurance.

Members of the board, and Parks and Recreation, expressed concerns over insurance liability for the playground, maintenance costs and the company Community Builders plans to go through, Leathers & Associates.

“The history of Leathers that I’ve been able to find out, over the last nine months I’ve been working on this, is just a red flag for me,” said Darin Krueger, Director of Parks and Recreation. “What they’re planning to do is a great thing for the community, I think it’s a great thing for Parks and Recreation...there’s just a lot of red flags with me.”

“There’s a list of things I think we would have to have before we could even think about donating land,” concluded Krueger.

As part of the Leathers program, project designers from the company would come to Williston and work with area children to develop a design for the playground. The playground would then be built by volunteers from the community, the essence of Community Builders. Jake Liudahl and Steve Powell, co-chairmen of Community Builders said they cannot move forward with the project, including the design, until they secure a piece of land for the playground, something board members took exception to.

“I would like to see the design and blueprint, to see if it would work with us,” said vice president Bruce Kaiser. “Until we see what we’re going to receive as a gift, it’s no gift to us.”

Krueger added that until they see a design, he has no idea how much maintenance will be. Because they plan to build the playground mainly from plastic lumber, with a 50-year warranty, Liudahl said maintenance would be minimal.

“Essentially it is as maintenance free as any playground you’ve ever seen,” said Liudahl.

Krueger said after talking with other cities that have installed Leathers’ playgrounds he’s concerned about long-term upkeep and durability.

“Leathers playgrounds are being tore out right now,” said Krueger. “Wood or plastic, to me it doesn’t matter because they’re still being tore out. That concerns me.”

“You’re talking about cutting, sawing, drilling and welding on site,” Krueger said later. “The workmanship of this playground is only as good as your volunteers and your volunteers are going to be people who are not usually cutting, drilling and sawing, that scares me.”

There was also disagreement over insurance liability. Because the project would be constructed by volunteers, the board asked who would be responsible for faulty construction. “I’ve asked that exact same question of Leathers & Associates,” Liudahl said. “And their answer is ‘If we’ve signed off on it with our guy,’ which is part of their program, ‘then it’s our mistake.’ They are responsible for the construction of the playground.”

Despite Liudahl’s assurances, Krueger said they didn’t have proof of that. The board came to the conclusion Leathers would only be liable on design flaws, not construction flaws, and the lumber company would only be responsible for their product.

“I’ll be the bad guy about the whole thing, the real concern is Leathers. The product is homemade, that’s what it is,” said board president Larry Grondahl. “The homemade aspect of the whole thing concerns us. There’s only two in the state, there’s a reason for that.”

The Parks and Recreation had received a letter from their insurance provider, NDIRF, advising against the purchase and installation of Leathers & Associates playground equipment, saying the Park District would inherit the majority of the product liability.

“They’ll insure it, but they’re not high on it. They’re not high on Leathers at all,” said Grondahl of NDIRF. Liudahl responded that building the project with volunteers is very important to Community Builders. “I think it’s important we build something that people will remember the community built, otherwise why are we doing it,” Liudahl said. “That’s all part of the reason we want to do this. We’re pulling the community together.”

“We have the motivation and the desire to do it,” continued Liudahl. “And you can either keep going forward with us and dedicate that piece of land, or say no, we don’t like that, possibly removing this project from ever happening from a private sector.”

After much discussion Darcy Collings made a motion to dedicate the property so Community Builders could move forward with the Leathers’ project, but no one seconded the motion.

The board said they are all for a playground project in Williston and don’t want to see the project canceled, but there were too many unknowns and concerns to dedicate the property at this time. “I definitely don’t want it to go away,” Dave Slette said. “It’s something that needs to get done.”

Liudahl felt that because of the failure to secure land, the project may die. “I think they made a big mistake,” said Liudahl. “This is a several hundred thousand dollar project that may disappear, a gift from the community they rejected.”

“I think we will now look at a couple other location options,” he continued. “But ultimately it will be up to the rest of the Community Builders.”