By T. Scott Boatright
The Lincoln Parish Police Jury made a long-awaited step to make a difference at Lincoln Parish Park as it held its June monthly meeting Tuesday night inside the Lincoln Parish Courthouse.
Backed by the Louisiana Office of Community Development, the Make-A-Difference Park Project is a $1 million initiative for Lincoln Parish Park, planned to upgrade playground equipment, resurface the park’s walking path and add electricity to park picnic sites.
The project is supported by a $1 million Community Development Block Grant, with an additional $50,000 donation from the Legacy Foundation.
“We’re finally at the point where we can award bids on the project,” said Parish Administrator Courtney Hall. “I know it’s been a long time coming and we’ve had ups and downs on securing funding for this. There’s a lot of paperwork that has to be done. Actually, the first time we applied it didn’t work and probably added six months to the project.
“But we’re at a point where we feel we have a good low bidder on the project and so tonight we’d like to award that bid and kick off the project.”
Project manager Paul Riley of Riley Company in Ruston said that the low bid came from McInnis Brothers Construction of Minden at a base cost of $970,000.
“We bid this as a three-alternate project,” Riley said. “The primary, I guess most of the project, is to rebuild all of those playgrounds — both the one that was the special-needs playground and also to build basically the same playground with the same surface right next to it.
“It will turn all of that into a really nice playground area.”
The upgrades will include installing a new rubber surface for the park’s original playground, constructing a new foundation and surface for Legacy Park, and repairing and replacing outdated equipment.
Legacy Park, the special-needs playground, was the original brainchild of area resident Jana Beck, who organized fundraisers, including a big one at Squire Creek, along with a large donation from the Lincoln Health Hub to cover a majority of the cost for that particular playground.
Upgrades will also include adding electricity to picnic sites and resurfacing the park’s walking path that was originally installed around 20 years ago along with potentially adding a parking lot and additional paved biking trails.
“The walking path is in dire need of work in some places, including putting up root barriers in some places that are pretty bad,” Riley said. “We can hopefully fix the spillway problem above the pond just upstream that drains and makes our walking path mossy, so we’re building a structure to catch (runoff water). In really large (weather) events (water) will still go over, but it won’t go over and stay for a week.”
Riley said that the $1 million in OCD funds and the $50,000 in local contributions bring the total bids to a little more than $1,050,000 but that hopes are that with a little more funding construction will include all three alternate plans to be able to do all the potential work desired.
The LPPJ also authorized Change Order No. 1 for its Blueberry Hills Wastewater Collection System Rehabilitation project, cutting $92,000 from the $950,000 project.
“A lot of what we have to do is just guessing because you don’t know until you get reports back,” Consulting Engineer Henry Shuler told the Police Jury. “In order for us to get it within the funding we have and cut things that are probably a stretch and probably won’t have to be done, we’re going to do that change order.”
Shuler also told jurors that $5 million was recently awarded for work on the Mt. Olive Water System.
“We have the award letter and it’s a done deal and the contract is signed,” Shuler said. “I know the next question is going to be, ‘When is it going to start?’ They give you five months, and that timeline runs about to mid-October. A couple of hurdles I see with it is that we’re replacing the vast majority of the district’s infrastructure. They’ll have new meters, a new well, a repainted elevated tank.
“So, I’m not telling you this will literally fix every problem, but the vast majority of them will be fixed by this project. The concern I have is then when you look for source replacement — look for another well — this is an emerging contaminant project. It’s iron and manganese. And looking at the pipes, they’re stained and can stain clean water coming out of the plant. So, we’re trying to fix it holistically, but we have to find another location with cleaner water. That’s not easy to do. You literally have to drill down, test the water and keep moving until you find clean water.”
Also approved was a preliminary plat for Oak Tree Road Subdivision Unit 4 as well as authorization to advertise for bids on a six-month supply of maintenance hot mix, a roof replacement for the Lincoln Parish Detention Center and for Mt. Zion Water System emergency repairs.
Parish Treasurer Michael Sutton also told jurors about the 2026-27 Lincoln Parish Sales and Use Tax Commission budget.
“The only difference in this budget compared to last year is a change of $17,000 in group insurance plans,” Sutton said. “We did have a staffing change for the last 12 months, but everything else is pretty insignificant.”
Also approved were the reappointments of incumbents Ralph McVay and Linda Kimball to five-year terms on Waterworks District No. 3 as well as a resolution providing for canvassing the returns and declaring the results of the recent May 16 millage special election.
