There’s good news for any kids looking to cool off this summer in the City of Kawartha Lakes.
The municipality is turning on its splash pads on June 26.
The service was previously on hold due to the ongoing emergency orders due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“There will be a limited number of participants allowed in the splash pad area at a time and the water flow will be stopped every few hours to go through a sanitation process,” said Mayor Andy Letham. “We will be cleaning the washrooms regularly just to make sure we are creating a safe and healthy environment for kids and parents who want to utilize these services.”
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There are three splash pads in the City of Kawartha Lakes: Garnett Graham Park in Fenelon Falls, Elgin Park in Lindsay and Tommy Anderson Park in Bobcaygeon.
All three will be opened daily from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Meanwhile, in addition to the libraries in Lindsay and Fenelon Falls, the other 12 branches in the municipality will be soon offering pickup services in the upcoming weeks.
All parks and recreational amenities remain closed at this time, with walk-through access only at parks and trails.
City staff continue to work on eventually reopening the pool at the Lindsay Recreation Complex later this summer.
The municipality is doing several upgrades at the Forbert Memorial Pool in Bobcaygeon and doesn’t anticipate opening it at all this summer.
In April, to offset revenue losses and to coincide with service cancellations, the municipality laid off more than 200 part-time and seasonal staff members while cancelling the student summer hiring program.
As of June 17, more than half of the laid-off workforce has been recalled and in some cases redeployed to other services.
“Over the next two weeks, we will be recalling almost our entire list of laid-off staff — by the end of June,” said chief administrative officer Ron Taylor.
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Among the soon-to-be called back workforce are library workers and aquatics personnel at pools, splash pads and beaches.
The rest of the laid-off workers will likely be redeployed to other services during the summer.
“Summer camps are predominantly student-led and we’ve suspended the program for the year. There are a couple of internal permanent part-time staff that assist in that operation. They were laid-off, but that’s an example of staff that would be called back and redeployed,” added Taylor.
“The other major group that is inactive is in the aquatics and fitness areas and those will be suspended in the immediate term, but, slowly and surely, will come back as the province permits. We are redeploying and readying many of those staff and calling them back now, at least on the aquatics side.”