{"id":68504,"date":"2017-04-22T16:28:15","date_gmt":"2017-04-22T22:28:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-parks-and-recreation-seeks-grant-for-playground-equipment\/"},"modified":"2017-04-22T22:28:15","modified_gmt":"2017-04-22T22:28:15","slug":"cortez-parks-and-recreation-seeks-grant-for-playground-equipment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-parks-and-recreation-seeks-grant-for-playground-equipment\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Parks and Recreation seeks grant for playground equipment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The playground at City Park in Cortez, which parks and recreation officials want to replace.<\/span>City of Cortez<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Cortez Parks, Recreation and Forestry Advisory Board is seeking a grant in partnership with the Montezuma Inspire Coalition to buy playground equipment for City Park.<\/p>\n

At an unofficial public meeting on Friday, several members of the board discussed plans to replace the current playground with a more \u201cnature-oriented\u201d one. Parks and Recreation Director Dean Palmquist said that if the grant application goes through, the new equipment will be made to look like trees, rocks and other natural elements in an effort to make kids more comfortable with playing outside. To help with the equipment\u2019s hefty price tag, he\u2019s asking for Inspire\u2019s help to write a state grant application.<\/p>\n

Palmquist showed the board some samples of possible designs for the playground, including a climbing net and concrete balance equipment made to look like a mountain.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe whole thing of the Inspire Coalition is to get the kids out climbing, and get the feel of a rock, the feel of a log,\u201d he said. \u201cOf course, we can\u2019t get real stuff into the playground, because it wouldn\u2019t be certifiable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Montezuma Inspire Coalition is one of several organizations in communities in Colorado that benefit from the Inspire Initiative, an effort by Great Outdoors Colorado to fund projects aimed at getting more kids to play outside.<\/p>\n

He said City Park\u2019s playground needs to be replaced because the equipment is starting to fall into disrepair, and the city wants to secure equipment as soon as possible. But the playground designs he showed will cost $150,000 or more to build, so the city will need a substantial grant in order to get them.<\/p>\n

Palmquist said he had submitted a request for proposal to the Montezuma group on Thursday, asking them to write a GOCO grant application, to be submitted by August. It\u2019s a competitive grant, he said, and only about half the local Inspire coalitions in Colorado will receive one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about a 50-50 crapshoot if our project gets funded,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But he added that the Montezuma Land Conservancy could become the city\u2019s fiscal agent on the project, and having a community land trust on their side could earn them some points with GOCO.<\/p>\n

Not enough board members attended the meeting to make up a quorum, but those who were there expressed their enthusiasm about the project. Board member Paul Adams said he liked the natural look of the sample playground designs Palmquist showed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks fun,\u201d he said. \u201cLook at those kids, having a great time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The board also used the unofficial meeting to judge submissions from in the Arbor Day poster and poem contest. Elementary students from Kemper, Lewis-Arriola, Mesa and other local schools had about a month to submit a poster design or a poem about trees and their role in the community. Winners will be announced at the city Arbor Day celebration on April 27.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

and Recreation seeks playground grant<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":68505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,318,13,28,1982],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-68504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-cortez-municipal-government","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-parks"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68504"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=68504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}