BY DAN HILDEBRAN
Monitor Editor
KEYSTONE HEIGHTS— The city council approved a $167,236 budget to rebuild the stage area at Keystone Beach, another $258,774 to improve the restrooms at the lakeside park and $3,900 for a cost analysis to upgrade the parking lot at the facility.
The city has already remodeled the facility’s pavilion, and the Lake Region Development Corporation funded a floating dock in the park’s swimming area. The corporation said it plans to install a fishing pier within the park soon.
City Manager Lynn Rutkowski told council members that $169,000 of the restroom improvements would come from American Rescue Plan funding while the remaining balance will be financed through the city’s capital improvements budget. The ARP money will cover the costs of upgrading the restrooms within the beach pavilion while the balance will upgrade the park’s restroom building.
The budget for the stage area includes replacing the current 500-square-foot wooden platform with a 496 square-foot, 4-inch concrete pad and a Galvalume metal roof matching the roof of the pavilion.
Although voting for the stage project, Mayor Karen Lake said she was opposed to erecting a roof over the stage area.
“To me it’s more important for people who come through town to be able to see out to that lake and to see the pavilion on the water,” she told the council. “You start putting up structures with covers and I’m sorry, I think it destroys the view. So, I will vote for it tonight, but I’m against the cover.”
Vice Mayor Steve Hart and Council Member Tony Brown both said they supported the roof over the stage.
Brown said frequent rains during past Our Country Day concerts on the Fourth of July have created a hardship for bands performing during the event, and that a stage roof would solve that problem.
Hart noted the budget includes ceiling fans under the stage’s roof.
“The last time the City Kiwanis band played there we had to bring in tents to cover (us) because it was hot and it was miserable,” he said. “(The) fans will make it a lot more habitable, not only for the city band, but for any other musical groups and entertainers that come in. I think it’s money well spent.”
DRMP will perform the cost analysis on the parking lot, looking at an alternative of milling and resurfacing the entire half-acre lot or resealing and restriping the parking area.
