BRONSON - The Kansas Department of Commerce’s Community Impact Tour stopped in Bronson on Tuesday to highlight a $199,000 Community Development Block Grant project at Bronson City Park. The project includes new playground equipment, a paved walking path around the park, ADA-accessible sidewalks and two ADA parking spaces.
Bronson City Council President Kelly Perry, the city’s Rural Champion, presented the project at the Bronson Community Center before leading attendees a block away to the park. Construction is in its first stage and is expected to be finished by December, Perry said.
Bronson was the tour’s final stop Tuesday, following a stop in Moran.
Perry was selected through the Office of Rural Prosperity’s Rural Champion program after the Healthy Bourbon County Action Team (HBCAT) applied for the program. She said she wrote the grant application with HBCAT’s Jody Love and Rachel Carpenter, Fort Scott’s community development coordinator.
Perry said the role required about 20 hours of work a week. She said city staff and council members were already handling other projects, so she volunteered.
“It’s not just, ‘Hey, sign up and they’re going to pay you to be the rural champion,’” Perry said. “You have to put in the work and the hours.”
The Bronson City Council chose a park renovation as the project after residents raised safety concerns about the park, Perry said. The project was originally planned around a $25,000 grant.
That changed after Rural Champions met with Lt. Gov. David Toland and told him many small communities could not pursue larger grants such as CDBG, Perry said. She said matching requirements and timelines that did not line up with the Rural Champion program were the main barriers.
Commerce later moved to a rolling application process, which allowed Bronson to apply, Perry said. The city combined the Rural Champion funds with memorial donations, and the council voted unanimously to apply for the CDBG.
The Southeast Kansas Regional Planning Commission submitted the CDBG application on the city’s behalf. Matthew Godinez, assistant secretary of Quality Places for the Kansas Department of Commerce, said the department changed the CDBG program to lower the required match for grants under $250,000.
The change was intended to help smaller communities, Godinez said.
Bronson is the second-largest community in Bourbon County, and it takes two school buses to carry its children to schools in Moran and Uniontown, Perry said. The park hosts birthday parties, graduation celebrations, Easter egg hunts and Bronson Day events.
Perry said the city repairs park equipment when it can, but most of its money goes to sewer, water and street needs. She said a wooden play structure with deteriorating stairs was eventually removed because the city could not afford to replace it.
“When something needs repaired, we either don’t have the money or the infrastructure to fix it or it is unsafe, so we just got to get it out of there, but we don’t have the money to replace it,” Perry said.
The renovation will replace older equipment with new playground equipment for children of different ages, Perry said. She said some current equipment poses safety risks, including a metal slide that can reach 118 degrees on hot days.
New ADA-accessible sidewalks will lead to the pavilion and the park’s restrooms, which sit near the center of the park. A paved walking path will circle the park.
The park’s worm, a long-standing piece of playground equipment, will remain in the park but may be relocated, Perry said. She said the city may apply for art grants to refresh it.
“I think every kid that has grown up in Bronson has probably sat on that worm’s head and taken a picture,” Perry said.
Before the CDBG work began, the city used a Kansas waste tire grant to add ADA-compliant picnic tables that wheelchair users can roll up to. A water bottle filling station was also installed through a Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas Pathways grant through HBCAT.
The project’s design drew on community input, Perry said, with about 63 people attending the first town hall meeting.
Residents placed stickers on posters of playground equipment they wanted, and those choices were used in the project’s bid, Perry said. During that meeting, she suggested moving the playground to a shaded area of the park.
Children at the meeting objected because they play football there, and the playground is not being moved. Perry said including them in the conversation mattered.
“Had they not been in the room and not been a part of the conversation, the park wouldn’t be as big of a deal for them,” Perry said.
Funding and support came from several sources. They include memorial funds from the family of the late Helen Bolling, who owned Bronson Locker with her husband, Raymond “Chubb” Bolling, along with donations from Community National Bank in Iola and the Fort Scott Area Community Foundation.
City Clerk Danielle Minor handled much of the city’s work on the project, and the city’s maintenance worker removed trees as in-kind work.
“This wasn’t the accomplishment of one person or one organization,” Perry said. “It took people working together, believing in our community, and investing in something that future generations can enjoy.”
Minor has asked the City Council about applying to the Southeast Kansas Community Foundation to replace the park’s basketball goals and backboards.
Perry said the budget does not include a park sign, and the city will discuss long-term maintenance before a ribbon-cutting planned for spring.
