The Trenton Park Board met on Wednesday night at the upper Moberly Park shelter house. The pool staffing crisis dominated much of the meeting, which lasted just under 20 minutes.
As of Wednesday evening, the board had only received six lifeguard applications for the summer of 2021. That small response comes even after park superintendent David Shockley took applications to the high school, hoping to garner interest.
The board discussed several options for increasing interest in serving as a lifeguard over the summer. Suggestions to raise the base pay — lifeguards currently start at $8 an hour with a 25 cent raise for each additional year served — and paying for potential lifeguards’ training and certification were discussed, but the board ultimately made no motion on either of those options. The board also discussed only having certain sections of the pool open on a rotation basis if they were unable to get a full staff put together by opening day.
Shockley had a planned meeting with pool manager Taylor Richman, who was hired after being the only applicant for the position, on Thursday to go over potential assistant managers and advised he would talk with her about recruiting additional lifeguards. The pool committee also agreed to hold a meeting early next week to consider the possible base pay raise and training stipends proposed, but a date and time was not set.
“I never dreamed we would be in this situation,” board president Duane Helmandollar said.
Vandalism
Shockley’s superintendent’s report noted that several incidents of vandalism had occurred around Eastside Park and Moberly Park over the weekend. Spray paint was used to deface bathrooms, playground equipment, picnic tables, the skate park, the livestock area at the rock barn and more. Shockley said his crew was working to remove the paint, but the park board is urging anyone with knowledge of the incident to contact them and report it.
In his report, Shockley also stated that Perkin’s Dozing had completed stump removal and removal of a concrete fountain/light by the flagpole at Moberly Park; he and his crew had assisted Gary Schuett in planting 12 trees at Moberly and Gladys Grimes parks, one of which was a Royal Raindrop Crabtree donated by Bill Bear of Rosemary Hill for Arbor Day. He also said local scouts had a volunteer day this past month to clean the pool in preparation for the upcoming season and North Central Missouri College’s home baseball and softball seasons have concluded with the Green Hills Recreation Association starting games next week on all fields. He said all fields are ready to go and soccer goals have been moved from Gladys Grimes Park to the old Griffin Field for the association’s soccer league, which started practices last week. Staff has also begun the first round of rotational trim spraying at the parks has been completed.
In other business, Mary Peterson reported on the tree planting for the grounds committee.
The next regular board meeting is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 2.