MASON CITY – Ozzie Ohl has been busy setting the wheels in motion for a new sledding hill that he hopes will be built in Georgia Hanford Park, ready for action this winter.
After a few concerns over the project were raised at a recent park board meeting, Ohl attended a block party this weekend for neighbors who live in the vicinity of the park and the sledding hill’s proposed location.
Ohl gave a detailed description of plans for lights, parking, and other aspects of the project.
The new sledding hill will not disturb existing trails, an lights will not disturb neighbors and will be shut off fairly early in the evening. Watch the video, below, for Ohl’s presentation.
Ohl is still raising money at this time but has the approval of the park board and the blessing of the Gerk family of Mason City who have been supporters of trees and prairie areas in the park.
Video:
httpv://youtu.be/qLOeuyJ-6pU
As a frequent walker of the trails at Georgia Hanford Park, I’m trying to understand the “Why?” of building a hill there, of all places. It’s a peaceful, serene, fairly FLAT area of town where up to now nature is respected. To tear things up to actually build a sledding hill is very hard to understand. I’m also surprised the Gerk family agreed to this. Plus the hill would be so far from the parking! One will be too tired to sled by the time they reached the hill! And yes, unfortunately vandalism will happen. Is there maybe enough room to build another sledding hill in the area of the future dog park off 12th Street and scratch this Georgia Hanford idea?
When MC city manager Brent Trout was in Boone the city had a sledding hill. A kid from Florida injured himself, the city of Boone wrote a check and the hill is closed. Ask him. Personal injury attorneys live off this stuff.
IF that is true, what’s stopping the same thing from happening at the sledding hill we already have at East Park? Furthermore, what if some kid falls off a slide at any one of the parks and hits his/her head and ends up dying, what’s stopping the liability there? What if….what if? We shouldn’t do anything because we fear everything from lawsuits to vandalism. Then we should stay home and bitch that we never do anything…yup, that’s what we should do.
He has the drive, the passion, and knows a TON of people in the community. I think he would be great at it.
We couldn’t get that lucky. Ozzie would be perfect. He would clean out the brewmonster in a hurry.
I’m for it IF is doen’t cost us the taxpayer a dime to build AND maintain.
I did not see much concern mentioned for the parking associated with the sledding hill. I can envision much more congestion on the street adjacent to the park with parents hauling sleds and kids in their cars. As Ozzie said, it is a public steet, but as a resident mentioned, most park users now WALK to the park, so there will definitely be more cars. Also, that is a a pretty good hike to the proposed location and it will not be visible from the steet. Another concern is vandalism.