Chelan proposes $100,000 to plan Don Morse Park improvements

CHELAN – When a piece of playground equipment breaks at Don Morse Park, Chelan parks crews sometimes have to remove it. Replacement parts are no longer available for some of the equipment, and some facilities at the waterfront park are inaccessible to people with disabilities.

Chelan’s proposed 2027 capital budget includes $100,000 to begin planning improvements at the park. Parks and Recreation Director Audrey Cooper told the Chelan City Council at its Nov. 3 workshop that the money would cover preliminary design, a cultural resources survey and public outreach. Construction could still be years away.

Cooper said she wants to hear directly from children about what they would use in a new playground. She described a playground designed so children with a range of abilities can play there, with features that make the equipment itself accessible as well as the paths leading to it.

“I like to go to the schools and ask the kids, what do you want in a playground? Because I don’t want to build a playground that kids don’t want to play in,” Cooper said.

The city has a conceptual layout from an earlier planning effort, but most of the public outreach at the time centered on the skate park. Cooper said staff would use that work as a starting point and ask residents whether the priorities still hold. She said she would look at a larger rebuild of the skate park, which could be considered alongside playground and restroom improvements as part of the broader plan.

The city applied for planning money from the Washington State Recreation and Conservation Office but did not meet the grant’s eligibility requirements, Cooper said. The $100,000 request was one of nine parks and recreation capital proposals totaling about $5 million that staff presented at the workshop.

The council reviewed the proposal as part of its budget discussions. Cooper said the first round of work could bring the park plan to about 30% design, with more design work needed before the city could build any of the improvements.

Andrew Simpson: 509-433-7626 or andrew@ward.media