Tissots' generous playground donation, other planned park upgrades announced at Hillsboro City Council meeting

Hillsboro Mayor Justin Harsha announced that longtime local business owners and philanthropists Darrell and Jane Tissot are donating funds to build a ninja course playground at the Railroad Street Park as part of numerous park-related discussions at the Aug. 15 Hillsboro Council meeting.

Repeatedly calling it a “huge” contribution to the city, Harsha made the announcement during his report to council.

“I wanted to just take this time to thank Jane and Darrell Tissot for their huge generosity to this community,” Harsha said. “They have been amazing to work with, and they have agreed to purchase and donate the money to build this whole playground down there at the park. That's huge for the city of Hillsboro.

“This playground is going to differ from other playgrounds in the city. It's not going to be your typical slides for little kids. It's going to be more of like a ninja course, where it's going to be an activity center, which I think will work really well down at the Railroad Street Park, especially for people playing pickleball. If they have little kids that come with them, they can go down and enjoy this.”

Later in the meeting, council voted 7-0 to approve supplemental appropriations in the amount of $169,723 for the park donation from the Tissots. A resolution authorizing the safety and service director to purchase the playground through the State of Ohio Cooperative Purchasing Program also passed as an emergency by a 7-0 vote, following suspension of the three-reading rule.

“The main thing I want to everybody take away from this is the huge generosity of people we have in the city of Hillsboro that would be willing to donate this kind of money to bring something like this to fruition,” Harsha said. “It’s huge, and it's going to be called the Jane and Darrell Tissot Ninja Course, donated in 2024.

“This is huge for Hillsboro, and I can't thank the Tissot family enough for what they've done for the city of Hillsboro.”

Council member Mary Stanforth asked where the new playground will be located.

“If you are standing in the parking lot, the center of the pickleball court, there's a concrete ground slab,” public works superintendent Shawn Adkins said. “That's going to come out. That whole area right there is going to be where the playground is. It fits perfectly into that, and the people playing pickleball will be able to see their kids.

“We’re trying to navigate a little more parking down there, possibly behind the restroom area, so hopefully that'll be coming before the spring also.”

Harsha said that they had originally planned to have the playground and a water feature at Crossroads Park but decided Railroad Street would be a better fit for the ninja course playground.

“With the Crossroads Park and the amphitheater, the hopes was that we would have a playground down at Crossroads Park to tie into that whole amphitheater project,” Harsha said. “We are also planning for a water feature down at Crossroads Park, and to fit a water feature in and a playground, it just seems like those projects would just look like an afterthought, trying to piece them all together.

“That's when we focused on Railroad Street Park for the playground, and keep the water feature at Crossroads Park, so that's that's kind of what we've decided. We walked down there and we were thinking originally, the playground would be better suited back where the playground used to be, back at the end of the cul-de-sac. When we were down there on site, and it just made more sense to do that in the nice, flat area right in front of the pickleball courts.”

Stanforth also asked what the city is planning to do with the restrooms at the Railroad Street Park, given all the other upgrades that have already taken place and upcoming pickleball tournaments planned there. Harsha said he hoped to have them reopen by “next spring.

“Back in the days of people stealing copper, they cut the copper pipes down off flush with the floor, so there's a little bit of work for us to do,” Harsha said. “We do have port-a-potties down there for the meantime, but the restrooms are definitely planning on being redone so that'll be another facility that they can use down there.”

Adkins said that the park restrooms are on his department’s agenda this winter, once their other projects settle down. He added that for the pickleball tournament, as well as other events at Crossroads Park, they have been ordering additional portable toilets.

Council member Jason Brown asked if the city was sure “the sewer lines coming out of the bathrooms are good” and whether it will affect the playground.

“The restrooms are perfectly fine,” Adkins said. “The restrooms go out the other way [away from the playground], so there's no issues. There's no infrastructure right there where it's going.”

In other park discussions, safety and service director Brianne Abbott said in her report to council that “Choice One Engineering is currently finalizing design for the Crossroads Park project,” and council approved several items of legislation for that park.

As previously reported, the City of Hillsboro received a $5,204,536 award to supplement already earmarked grant funding for Crossroads Park (formerly known as the green space on West Main Street). The city has already secured $100,000 in state capital funding, through a partnership with Southern State Community College, for the project. The park has served as the site for the Hillsboro Festival of the Bells and other local events.

A resolution authorizing the safety and service director to enter into a grant agreement with the board of commissioners of Ross County, for the Appalachian Community Grant for Crossroads Park, passed as an emergency Thursday after suspension of the three-reading rule. Abbott explained that Ross County commissioners were the “lead applicant” for the grant.

A grant for another Crossroads Park upgrade was also approved, as a resolution authorizing the safety and service director to enter into a $100,000 grant agreement with Ohio Department of Natural Resources passed as an emergency, after suspension of the three-reading rule. This legislation is for the aforementioned water feature planned at Crossroads Park.

Council member Jo Sanborn Earley asked if the city planned for this water feature to be “more like a fountain or a splash pad.”

“It hasn't been fully designed yet by Choice One, but it will be more of like a splash pad, but also it's not going to be like the one you see in Wilmington, for example,” Abbott said. “It’ll be more just water shooting out of the concrete, more aesthetically pleasing for that area.”

A resolution authorizing the mayor to take necessary steps to acquire auditor’s parcel number 25-26-001-019.01 — which is adjacent to Crossroads Park — was approved unanimously as an emergency, following suspension of the three-reading rule.

According to Harsha, it is a .0705 acre parcel, which will be purchased for $5,000.

“This is a very small sliver of property butting right up to our property on Beech Street that is owned by a private individual, and when I contacted him, he was willing to sell it for what he bought it in 2005,” Harsha told council. “In the development of Crossroads Park, we want to clean everything up to the best of our ability, so we have a full picture, you know, of the scope of the property, so we can plan accordingly.”

Brown asked “how many parking spots this is going to create.”

“The parcel that we're talking about is going to be in conjunction with a little dilapidated brick structure behind it,” Harsha said. “The property that we already have is probably going to be most of the parking, but getting this property will allow us access, because right now, we're pretty much limited to the alley. We'd like to have that piece of property so we can plan accordingly to get to the parking.”

Harsha noted that the Visitors Bureau’s Tri-County Battle of the Bands event at Crossroads Park, held Aug. 10, was a preview of “what we have to come” at that park.

“It was very well attended,” Harsha said. “It's nice to see what we have to come, having an amphitheater coming down there, and people coming and enjoying activities going on down there, It's going to be really nice.”

Finally, for a third planned park upgrade, a resolution to enter into a contract with DLZ Ohio Inc. for the design of the Rails to Trails TAP grant project passed as an emergency by a 6-0 vote, with Brown abstaining, following suspension of the three-reading rule.

As previously reported, the city was awarded a $1.44 million Transportation Alternatives Program (TAP) grant from the Ohio Department of Transportation, in June 2023, for the construction of the Rails to Trails Community Trail in 2026. The project will create a walking and bicycling trail on the abandoned railroad bed and a sidewalk on West Main Street between the trailhead and Taylor Court.

“This is a 2026 project, and ODOT is requesting stage one engineering submissions in the fourth quarter of this year,” Abbott said. “We are requesting the suspension of the three reading rule and passage by emergency to comply with those time constraints put on by ODOT.”

Check back to highlandcountypress.com for more from Thursday’s meeting.

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