Monterey Welcomes New Playground Equipment For Whitaker Park

Monterey’s new playground equipment for Whitaker Park shipped last week and will be installed in the coming days.

Monterey Cultural Administrator Rafferty Cleary said the firm Recreational Concepts will construct the new facility and do the groundwork. Cleary said the opportunity to supply children with better park equipment is part of Monterey’s effort to improve the quality of life around the city.

“It’s been needed for quite some time, the metal playground equipment that we actually took down a couple of weeks ago had been there since the ‘80s,” Cleary said. “One of the ladies that works up at city hall says ‘I can remember playing on that equipment when I was in middle school,’ so it’s been a long time coming.”

Cleary said some of the old pieces of playground equipment the city has taken down began to pose safety concerns. Cleary said there is also another playground structure at Whitaker Park made out of wood that is going to stay.

“Some of the metal equipment was worn,” Cleary said. “There was some plastic playground equipment that was broken and could no longer be repaired so it was in bad shape.”

Cleary said Whitaker Park is more than just a place for the children of Monterey to play, is the centerpiece of the town.

“It’s exciting there’s no doubt about that,” Cleary said. “Monterey has the past several years been trying to keep quality of life in the forefront in our decision making and this is a prime example of that.”

Cleary said Monterey completed grading work on the site several weeks ago.