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The Watertown Parks and Recreation Board of Trustees met on Tuesday, August 25 and heard a short presentation from Valerie Barnes about the possibility of bringing an arts in the park event to Watertown next year.
Barnes, a Watertown local, said there are three locations under consideration for the event: the Jack and Esther McLaughlin Wildlife Sanctuary, Stokes-Thomas Lake City Park and Riverside Park south of the Bramble Park Zoo.
McLaughlin is Barnes’ top choice because she said there is parking available at Watertown Municipal Utilities and the baseball field, as well as an overflow field that could be used for about 50 more vendors to the east of the sanctuary. That field is privately owned, but Barnes said she’s worked out a deal to get the space at no cost to the city.
Currently there are also two potential dates for the event next year. The weekends her team has in mind are the Friday, Saturday and Sunday after school gets out, or the Friday, Saturday and Sunday before students go back to school.
Barnes said this isn’t the first event of the same style she and her team have put on.
“I’ve got about 100 vendors that follow me to shows (locally)” she said. On top of that, she said she has a Facebook community of about 1,500 other vendors from the area.
Barnes and her team are also willing to put up signage and provide security for the event. As far as tables and other set ups, the vendors themselves will provide their own.
Vendor fees submitted to Barnes would go back into the community, likely into a non-profit organization, she said, though none has been determined.
Barnes and her team also suggested the event might benefit from a special event alcohol license.
“Our purpose for this is to bring people in and show Watertown off,” she said. “It’s time for Watertown to shine.”
The event, she said, would pull in local vendors, area small businesses, and even have a few hours reserved for a junior vendor show where kids can sell their wares without competing with adults.
There are also plans to have food vendors and to put on live music by local performers. To help vendors find hotel rooms, Barnes said she would contact local hotels and have them block off sections of rooms for the event.
She suggested the Bramble Park Zoo and the Glacial Lakes Humane Society also bring animals to the sanctuary to help promote their organizations.
Parks and Recreation Director Matt Brandsrud said he was concerned the sanctuary may not be big enough and that there will be issues with pedestrian traffic on Fourth Avenue SW. While Barnes assured him the park and the adjacent field would be large enough, she wasn’t able to address the pedestrian traffic concern.
While Barnes promised there would be little cost to the city, there was no budget provided at the meeting.
No action was taken regarding the proposal.
Watertown Family Aquatic Center battles leak
Recreation Supt. Josh Maag said the issue that caused the pool to close about a day early came from the expansion joints, which allow abutting concrete to safely expand and contract naturally.
Staff knew there was an issue since 2025, but Maag said the specifics of the issue only recently became clear when a leak detection inspection and investigation crew from Nebraska was called in.
“As they got going and (began) finding things, they asked us to drain the pool (overnight),” he said.
Jamie Jordan, the facilities maintenance superintendent said the draining of the pool allowed the pipes to be tested and ruled out as the issue.
Jordan said the news that the pipes weren’t the issue was good because the pool doesn’t have to be dug up. Maintenance or replacement on the expansion joints come with their own challenges, however.
“We don’t have to dig up the pool, but about every expansion joint is compromised,” he said. “It’s a pretty big deal.”
Jordan said the facility’s water consumption has doubled this year.
Right now, the cost of the project hasn’t been determined, though numbers will be handy at the board’s next meeting in September.
He said no matter what, mitigation efforts need to be done by fall. A full solution, however might require a four-to-five-year resurfacing plan.
“One thing to remember is that (the pool) is 20 years old,” Maag said. “Being in South Dakota with all the weather changes, I doubt something like this is preventable. It’s something that happens with time.”
In other news the board:
- the board discussed changing meeting times but ultimately decided changing the structure to a “deep-dive” style would benefit them more. Meeting times will remain the same, though locations will be different.
- heard from Brandsrud that the trail map on the city’s website would be updated soon with the help of Kelli Fritz, the public information officer, who recently returned from maternity leave.
