The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Editorials

October 1, 2007

Our View — Collaborate on a water park

Everyone, it seems, wants a local water park.

Mankato officials have long had it on their wish list. North Mankato planners, too, are envisioning a water park in their future.

The plans are fueled by public demand. And for good reason: Water parks are fun and a positive way for kids and families to spend time together.

Water parks, once built, are always a hit. Waseca’s new outdoor water park has had higher use than expected. The same has been true of most parks opened in any city.

They are also expensive. The private sector can, in some cases, justify building a water park — particularly as part of a hotel project. But there are few cases where a large publicly available water park can be built and operated as a profitable private venture.

Like parks, civic centers and libraries, water parks are justifiably viewed as a legitimate public investment for the entertainment and betterment of a community.

That doesn’t make it any easier to find ways to pay for them.

With both the Katos wishing for a water park it would seem the perfect opportunity for the communities to throw their, uh, rubber duckies in the same tub.

Everyone talks about how the cities should cooperate more to gain efficiencies in government spending. In their defense, the communities’ governments do cooperate on many things. And there are things that each city does separately that makes sense to keep separate.

But we hope leaders from both cities would seriously look at joint construction of a water park.

The benefits would be obvious — the park could be bigger and better (perhaps an indoor/outdoor park?), costs could be shared by taxpayers of both cities and residents from both communities would benefit from using it.

It doesn’t matter which city gets the building, but ideally it would be located at a point providing the closest access to the most residents in both communities.

There’s no reason it can’t work, if leaders in both cities want it to. We hope elected officials and staff will try.

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