Great Bend residents are looking ahead to summer and this week the City Council approveda handful of fireworks displays for June

and July. Meanwhile, spring projects are underway and other projects are nearing completion, including the Splash Pad and the intersection at 32nd and Williams.

Fireworks

City staff said most of the money has been raised for the Independence Day fireworks show, which will be the evening of July 3 at the Expo Grounds west of Great Bend.

It was reported that people like having the show one day ahead of the Fourth of July. That way they can enjoy their home fireworks the following day.

If the show can’t go on that day, the fireworks will be fired at the Great Bend Airport’s Airfest on Sept. 21.

The Bat Cats baseball team also received a nod from the city to have fireworks at two home games.

These will either be on June 1 and 4 or on the makeup dates, July 8 and 9.

Pouring concrete 

During the reports from department heads at Monday’s Great Bend City Council meeting, Assistant City Manager Logan Burns said laying concrete at the site of the new Splash Pad in Veterans Memorial Park would start at the end of the week. “We’ll have final drawings for the pavilion this week as well. Then we’re looking to commission that on April 29 and open the Splash Pad in early May.”

That wasn’t the only work being done in town with concrete.

Fire Chief Brent Smith reported the last eight feet of the approach to Fire Station 2 was completed Monday morning. “They’ll do the joint ceiling later on this week and that project will be completed.”

Police Chief Steve Haulmark said the concrete on the north side of the new Justice Center was completed about a week and a half ago. “They started cutting the concrete on the east side today (March 18) to make the repairs there. Otherwise, we’re moved in and mostly unpacking the new building.”

Jason Cauley at Public Works said the biggest project for his department now is the intersection of 32nd Street and Williams. The forms were up and employees were getting ready to pour around the sanitary sewer. “They’re also going to pour in the gutters on each wing as it comes into that radius. Once that’s poured and once that concrete sets up, then we’ll go through and start pouring out flow line and get that intersection done.” He said he hopes the work will be done in the next couple of weeks to allow traffic to flow back through there.