Riverside mayor vetoes splashpad

RIVERSIDE ? Riverside Mayor Bill Poch has vetoed a resolution to hold a public hearing and a bid letting on the proposed splashpad on March 5. The Riverside City Council passed the resolution last week on a 3-2 vote. Poch announced in an e-mail Monday night that he would veto the resolution and gave several reasons for his decision.

Poch said that he believed the splashpad was not in the best interests of the community. He said the time and emotion spent on the subject is an indication that the council needs to go back to the drawing board and have the ?whole council and community involved in the decision-making process.?

Poch said that he made his decision after consulting with about 20 residences, receiving 12 e-mails and discussing the matter with council members.

?I believe the right and best decision to make for the splashpad is to make sure all residents are included in the decision-making process by having all questions asked and answered before we move forward with the final bid process,? he wrote.

The mayor has 14 days to veto a resolution from the time it is passed by the council. The council can override the mayor?s veto with a two-thirds majority of all council members. Since Riverside?s council consists of five members, four of them will have to vote for the resolution in order to override Poch?s veto. Councilors Christine Kirkwood, Kevin Kiene and Nate Kasdorf voted in favor of the resolution when it came before the council Feb. 6 while Bob Schneider Jr. and Ralph Schnoebelen voted against it.

Poch made a list of more than a dozen reasons he was vetoing the resolution. He said there was not enough communication with the other council members on the splashpad?s design and the project?s cost. He said there was no letter provided or requested from an insurance agent about the city?s liability. He said no provisions were made for handicap accessibility, sidewalks or lighting. He said there was no decent place to change clothes, either.  

Poch said there were a number of questions that had not yet been asked at the time the splashpad was approved. He wondered whether the splashpad would be locked up and who would be responsible for locking it.

?The splashpad may be worthwhile but if it is, let?s do it right the first time rather than building it and then finding out we acted too fast,? he said. ?Is this the way to spend public funds? Have we researched cities that had splashpads and then did away with them? Do we know why they closed them down, so we don?t make the same mistake??

A splashpad refers to an area to play with water and which water runs through but does not include standing water. The splashpad was included in the council?s 2011-2012 budget that was approved last year. Last fall, the council sought grant funding for the $160,000 project. It had initially planned to spend $80,000 on the splashpad and then ask the Riverboat Foundation to pay for the other half. The foundation awarded the city a grant of $70,000. In December, the council approved the additional $10,000 necessary for the splashpad.

The current proposal for the splashpad is to build it in Hall Park near the volleyball courts. Poch wrote in his e-mail that he did not like the proposed location of the splashpad. He said a better location would be where the community building is planned, which is near the Riverside Elementary School. He said many young children live in that part of town and thus it would be safer for them to go there than to cross Highway 22.