Sliter Park bathrooms ready for summer

Bigfork’s Sliter Park bathrooms may have left a bad impression on all who used them before the Community Foundation for a Better Bigfork, the Bigfork Community Development Foundation and Flathead County took it upon themselves to give the bathrooms an overhaul last month in preparation for the 2012 summer season.

“It’s such a tremendous asset in the community to have a park down there,” Bob Keenan, BCDF trustee, said. “And the bathrooms were definitely an eyesore.”

The interior of the bathrooms were gutted and rebuilt — new stalls, toilets, sinks, dispensers, motion-censor lights, doors, flooring, outside siding and locks. Martel Construction did the work and the community development foundation footed the $23,000 bill. In addition the county has agreed to paint the new siding and the Sliter Park stage to match, and they will provide refurbished park benches and picnic tables.

Keenan said the project was one of those things his foundation looks to fund.

“We like to invest in hard asset projects,” Keenan said.

In other words, he looks for projects that are tangible and help enhance the community, something that is visible and will be around for a while. The development foundation helps fund projects that do not receive county, state or federal funding.

Without their funding the bathrooms most likely wouldn’t have received the remodel, Flathead County Weeds, Parks and Recreation director Jed Fisher said.

Sliter Park is leased to the county by PacifiCorp. The lease was signed in 1981 at a cost of $100 a year, which CFBB pays in five-year increments. Their last payment to PacifiCorp was in June 2011 via the county for $1,157. The lease cost has been adjusted for inflation over the years.

“Without the private donation, it would have been hard to justify the upgrade cost,” Fisher said. “Because the county doesn’t own that land.”

Fisher said the county was pleased to be able to partner up and fix the problems with the bathrooms. This is especially the case because his budget is extremely tight right now and there aren’t enough funds to go around to the 75 plus parks his department maintains.

Once the weather clears for an extended period of time, the county should be able to get the bathrooms painted and the benches installed. The county has also agreed to clean out the bathrooms once a week throughout the summer.

The CFBB plans on augmenting the county’s cleanup, said CFBB president Paul Mutascio. They will make sure the toilet paper, soap and paper towels don’t run out, the trash is taken out, and the bathrooms are usable in the interim time.

One of the biggest issues with the bathroom is that it’s open 24 hours a day during the summertime. To ensure that vandalism is kept to a minimum, security cameras were also installed during construction.

“We’re very happy it got done,” Mutascio said. “They’re really the only public bathrooms downtown that are open all the time, so it was necessary.”