Kyle Parks & Recreation
by KERRY URBANOWICZ
When you drive through downtown Kyle, past the City Christmas Tree next to the Historic Train Depot, and admire the lights on the street lamps, the giant wreaths on City Hall, the lights around the Historic Kyle City Hall and the “Lights Spectacular” show at the Kyle Pool, have you thought about who put them up?
The Maintenance Division of the Kyle Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) spend most of the year planning the decorations, putting them up and taking them down each year. While taking the decorations down last year, they made of list of elements that needed to be repaired or replaced before they went back up. This list was added to the annual budget request from the department in April and May. The current budget for Citywide Holiday Decorations is $5,000. This goes to purchase replacement light bulbs, wiring, strings of lights, wreaths, garland, timers and everything needed to complete the job. While commercial decorations last 5 to 10 years, most of the elements are relatively new. Each year the staff tries to add something new while replacing the old. This year the new features include lights around the Historic Kyle City Hall and additional lights at the Kyle Pool as we continue to enlarge the Lights Spectacular event.
Planning the layouts and placement of the decorations begin right after the Kyle Fair – the third week of October. Staff pulls out the decorations, checks the thousands of bulbs and plugs and makes the order for replacement items. The day after the Halloween Carnival, the end of October, staff begins putting things up. It does draw comments when you see the holiday decorations going up in early November, but it takes more than 500 man hours to completely decorate the town.
Maintenance staff spend several weeks putting up the city tree, wreaths and lights. They spend a couple of days putting up the tree inside City Hall and all the decorations that welcome City Hall visitors. They spend several weeks putting together the light show at the Kyle Pool and everything has to be done before the Monday after Thanksgiving. Beginning the week after Thanksgiving, the PARD staff transform the Falcon Community Room into Santa’s Room, set up the section of Front St. between City Hall and the Train Depot for the school choirs and festival activities such as “Letters to Soldiers” and “Dear Santa Letters”.
In addition to all the setting out of these decorations, electrical connections, timers and wires, they also keep the grass cut in all the parks, trails and right of ways, they keep the trash picked up around town and all the buildings operating without interruption.
So, the next time you make your way down Center Street in downtown Kyle, or go by the pool and tune your FM radio to 100.1 for the Lights Spectacular show, think about the maintenance staff at the Kyle Parks Department. Thank them when you see them. But do it quickly because they have to take everything down, inventory the decorations and store it all right after the first of the new year.
Mark your New Year’s Day calendar for the Polar Bear Splash at 1p.m. This will be the 7th time that Kyle starts off the new year with a cool “splash”. The pool is open to all on January 1 for this event and admission and “splashing” are free. The City Splash is at 1 p.m. and there will be hot drinks and snacks for all. For those wanting a little more, join the Polar Bear Club. The $20 Polar Bear Club membership gets you a Club Sweatshirt, name plate on the Club Plaque, half price Kyle Pool Season Passes and door-prize ticket. The door-prizes this year are really ‘cool’.
Happy Holidays from your Kyle PARD staff.
