A committee has officially been formed to move forward with plans for the Wellness Park in Washington. At Tuesday’s special session of the Washington City Council, the council unanimously passed a motion to approve the committee. The next step will be for that committee to select an engineer, which may be done in conjunction with the county’s trail system planning project.

City Administrator Brent Hinson stated the project timelines may align with others, “The Y is likely to be restarting the process publicly soon, and there’s going to be Vision Iowa type timelines out there that will be relatively tight. Basically, in order for us to have enough stuff ready to potentially jointly apply, that would be an aggressive time frame.” He added to get to that point, the Wellness Park will need conceptual designs and cost estimates. According to a memo from Hinson, the Council established a City budget of $1.2 million for this project, in addition to in-kind donations and grants.

The committee includes Nick Pacha, Trent Stout, Eric Turner, Mark Kendall, Nathan Miller, Deran DeLong, Alissa Levy, Chad McCleary, and Kyle Wellington.