Catalina Island News

New City Park Playground at Machine Gun Park

2016-01-28
City of Avalon

The City of Avalon’s Recreation Dept along with the GameTime created a new playground at City Park aka Machine Gun Park. The Park was built over the weekend in 3 days with the help of Avalon’s Public Works crew.  The grand opening was held Monday, Jan 25th at 3:00 p.m.  The Mayor Ann Marshall, Mayor Pro Tem Oley Olsen and Council Member Cinde MacGugan-Cassidy were on hand for the ribbon cutting ceremony.  Mayor Marshall gave a wonderful speech talking about the necessities of play space for Avalon’s youth and Council Member MacGugan-Cassidy cut the ribbon as kids swarmed the playground.

“We wanted to create a playground that was sensory stimulating allowing creativity with physicality.  I believe we achieved that here.”, David Hart Recreation Dept.  The OmniTriNet is a 12 foot structure with a honeycomb pattern of climbing ropes. The play structure is surrounded by musical instruments that continue to feed the curiosity and creativity. The base of the playground is engineer wood fiber chips, which are antibacterial and weave together to make a soft, safe, landing and is ADA assessable.

A lot of people came together to make this playground for the kids enjoyable. Nate Yonkers of GameTime, who designed and provided the Equipment. Kevin Carter and the crew from Unlimited Engineering for installing the Equipment. Jeffery Hernandez, Frank Rojo, and Jose Cuevas from our own Public works for the demoing and installation.  David Hart and Jenifer Monroe of the City of Avalon’s Recreation Dept, for conceptualizing and organizing the project. Former City Manager Ben Harvey for encouraging our ambitious ideas for upgrades, such as this community projects.  The City Council for putting forth the funding to provide a place for Avalon’s youth to enjoy, play, and be creative. We would also like to say a big "Thank You" to the entire community for coming and playing with us.