Sangamon Sun

At the Dec. 5 Lincoln City Council meeting, council discussed further allocation of ARPA funds to purchase and install additional equipment at Mayfair Park which would cost $100,000. Funding for the equipment would come by federal grant through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and would not cost the city any revenue or taxpayers dollars.

The city has five different parks, and Mayfair Park has been designated by the city as exclusively special-needs friendly. Facilities at the park are handicapped-accessible. Council has discussed installing special needs equipment at the other four parks, but the city council decided to focus on accessibility initially at Mayfair.

"Basically this park is exclusively special needs. We have discussed putting other special needs apparatus at those parks, but this is the only park at this point where the entire park is designed for special needs," Lincoln City Council Alderman Kevin Bateman said at the meeting. 

The council also discussed putting another wheelchair swing at Postville Park. Alderman Rick Hoefle mentioned doing studies of the wheelchair swing at the park district to see how much it gets used before determining if and where they should install another one.

The council voted in favor of the additional funding.