The Whole Kit and Caboodle - La Junta Parks and Rec Making Improvements for 2023

Description: Interview with City of La Junta Parks and Rec Director Brock Hinkhouse. Numerous repairs and improvements to La Junta's parks are currently underway, according to Hinkhouse.

La Junta Parks and Rec Making Improvements

We spoke with La Junta Parks and Recreation Director Brock Hinkhouse about current projects in La Junta. Topics discussed range from the new brick and tile park playground installation to the repair and replacement of the city park fountain, and the new columnbarium at the cemetery. 

Podcast Transcript:

The La Junta Parks and Recreation Department and East Otero School District partnered up to do new decking on the bleachers at Potter Park. New decking on the bleachers at Potter Park. New scoreboard going up. You said at Veterans Fields? At Veterans Field. And you said it's already ordered and shipping? No, it's ordered. The shipping's the fountain - it's been shipped.

Okay. And then of course the fountain went out. What broke on the fountain?

Just the pump, the motor went out on it. Motor, the electrical burned out on it. So you end up having to buy the whole kit and caboodle or what? Kit and caboodle.

The last one we bought was probably five years ago, and the one before that was probably about five, six years before that. So they were good. So yeah, about five or six years.

But the new one's gonna have lights in it?

It's gonna have 14 different colors of LED on it. Nice. So we're gonna have our seasonal light displays extended by the city a little bit. Yeah. It'll be, and the good thing is this one was cheaper than the last one.

Which is rare at this time. Yeah. Wow. So we were able to get a little better deal and so yeah, that's what we're doing. Cool. Thank you for the update.

Okay. what's it called at the cemetery? What's that called? The new columnbarium? Yeah, and that's where you keep the ashes for cremations?

Yeah. There's 48 niches and we filled up. 43 of 'em at this point. On the old one. That was from, I think 2009, right? 2007. One of the two. So we had another one come in, so we were ready.

Oh yeah, and I think that's about it. New water lines out at the cemetery. We put a new run of water lines. The hope is the water lines that are out there now are about 80 years old, and we've been slowly replacing them every year, and the hope is that someday we can automate it so we don't have to have sprinklers that we have a man go out there and move them around.

Very cool. Yeah. Lots of improvements going on. Yep. Thank you, Brock. You bet.

Monday to start installing the playground. Okay. Monday, the playground installation, starting at brick and tile park, weather permitting. Weather permitting, and then we gotta wait. The big hold up on that has been the surface that is underneath the playground. It's called pour in place. Yeah, and so our temperatures have gotta be right, [they can't] dip below something at night. The playground goes in, then we'll be just watching the weather and they'll come down and put that pour in place.

So there is some movement down there. They're working on the bathrooms. They're gonna pour some concrete for the bathrooms, and so we are moving forward.

We're probably gonna have a new park come springtime, huh?

I'm hoping so. Oh yeah. Should be by spring. And unless there's some sort of unforeseen something.

Yeah, and what's the other thing we got going on there? I just had just thought about that. Yeah. Bathrooms going in. You should see gazebos going up too. Okay. City crew are gonna put up gazebos. Wow. Very cool. Parks, Streets and Sanitation are gonna work on that, I think, Electric Department too.

When's that starting? February. Around Valentine's Day, February's 14th somewhere.

All right, a couple weeks out. Yep. So very cool progress on brick and tile. I'm sure everybody will love to hear that.

Related Content:

La Junta City Park Pond Photo Gallery by Aaron Torres

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