Health Commissioner proposes Fitness Court addition to Hillsboro parks system

Hillsboro City Council members heard a presentation on a potential opportunity for a partnership with the Highland County Health Department to enhance the city’s parks system during their monthly meeting Thursday, Feb. 13.

Highland County Health Commissioner Jared Warner discussed the proposed National Fitness Campaign initiative, which the city began considering several months ago.

As previously reported, in November council received a copy of a report from Warner stressing the need for physical activity to improve health outcomes in the county.

"I encourage the Hillsboro City Council to prioritize initiatives, such as the National Fitness Campaign project, that increase access to physical fitness opportunities,” Warner wrote. “This also includes supporting the development of local parks, walking trails and community fitness programs. By investing in such initiatives, the council can foster a healthier, more active community and address the growing health disparities faced by residents of Highland County.”

Warner shared handouts with council members, administrators and the community with statistics on local health outcomes and photos of the National Fitness Campaign’s Fitness Courts as a potential addition to the city’s parks system.

“As you all know, physical activity is an important part of your general health as a factor in how healthy a person is,” Warner said. “When we look at some of the physical activity rates and some of the statistics for Highland County, we don't always measure up as well as we would like to compared to the rest of the state or the rest of the country.

“In looking at the report from Robert Wood Johnson, who does a county health rankings survey every year, is that 33 percent of our Highland County residents engage in absolutely no fitness activity. They don't take walks, they don't hike, they don't play pickleball, they don't do anything of that sort. Comparing that to the rest of the country, those are pretty significant numbers of people who don't engage in any sort of physical activity at all.”

Warner pointed out that “economic barriers” are a major factor in limiting “the community’s ability to afford fitness center memberships,” while another issue is proximity.

“In Ohio, we have 84 percent of Ohioans who have direct access nearby to a park or some sort of recreational opportunity,” Warner said. “When you look at Highland County's numbers, we're at 41 percent, so only 41 percent of our community really has access to parks and recreational opportunities.”

According to Warner’s statistics, 44 percent of Highland County adults are classified as obese, which is also “higher than the state and national average.”

These concerns led him to his idea to seek funding for a National Fitness Campaign Fitness Court for the area as another way to open opportunities to exercise. According to the National Fitness Campaign website, these courts are “designed for adults of all ages, abilities and fitness levels … [and are] free to use, fully accessible and home to premier outdoor fitness classes and training programs.”

“You guys have done a really great job in Hillsboro, especially in the last few years, of bringing recreational opportunities to your community,” Warner said. “You have a new ninja course out there at one of your parks, the new pickleball court, which I spend a lot of my time on in the summer and fall, so you guys have already made a lot of progress in trying to provide opportunities to the community.

“We still are falling short in low-cost or no-cost opportunities for our people to go out and be active, and so we identify that as an issue that we want to address at the Health Department. It’s something that's in our strategic plans for the community itself, and we have an opportunity with this National Fitness Campaign to try to address that.”

Similar “preestablished footprints of outdoor fitness centers” have been implemented in Ohio cities such as Cincinnati and Dayton, as well as more local areas such as Washington Court House, Warner told council.

“It's really dedicated for the idea of access, with no cost, to outdoor fitness equipment,” Warner said. “It’s split in half, where one half of it is a lot of exercise equipment really focused on body weight exercises and low impact exercises, and things that are accessible to the general community. The other half of those fitness courts is a big open area, where people could hold yoga classes or Zumba or a kid’s birthday party or whatever it is the community would want to do.

“The idea is to try to drop these units out in different communities across the country and just really try to increase the accessibility and availability of physical fitness and physical activity to different communities.”

To pay for the court, Warner said that the National Fitness Campaign has “between $30,000 and $60,000 worth of funding” in grants that they award to municipalities, while they also have “blueprints” already completed for use to save on engineering costs. However, the health commissioner cautioned that the grant “doesn’t cover the entire project cost,” which he said can range from “$150,000 to $260,000.

“There’s a pretty big gap between the funding that they offer to the communities that decide to partner with them and the actual amount that's needed to install these,” Warner said. “I know we have an interest at the health department in trying to find opportunities like this to provide to our community, and I know you all as a city have already worked in several areas to do the same sorts of things.

“What I wanted to talk to you about tonight, and really just make you aware of, is the opportunity to potentially partner with us if the council decides this is the direction you want to go.”

According to the handout from Warner, if the city agrees that they are interested in pursuing a Fitness Court, the next step would be to participate in a virtual workshop with the National Fitness Campaign organization to discuss feasibility and funding details. They could then apply for the aforementioned $30,000 to $60,000 in grant funding.

Council president Tom Eichinger asked if there is “a time window that this national program will have funding available.”

“I spoke with the coordinator for Ohio earlier today, and right now, they have room for four to five new projects in 2025 for Ohio,” Warner said. “There's not a whole lot of room, and if the council's interested in moving that direction, the sooner they get our name on the list, the better.”

According to the handout from Warner and the National Fitness Campaign website, local sponsors can also be identified to help offset the cost of the project.  

Eichinger thanked Warner for the information and told him that the community enhancement committee “will take this under advisement and make a decision and bring it back to council.” Committee chair Kathryn Hapner said she expects to meet before council’s March meeting to review the proposal.

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