The wooden benches on the Village Green are being replaced. Worthington City Council unanimously approved spending about $72,000 to swap out all 28 benches on the downtown green, money that was already set aside in this year's capital budget. Council also took up a separate question that drew more debate than the benches themselves: whether the city should let residents sponsor or donate benches on the green. Members set that idea aside for a future discussion.
Benches at the end of their life
Parks and Recreation Director Darren Hurley told council the current benches were installed during a 1990 rehabilitation of the Village Green, making them about 36 years old. The wooden slabs have been planed down and even fully replaced several times over the years, he said, but they've reached the point where they can't be refinished again, and the end pieces and hardware have become difficult to maintain.
The benches also draw mixed reviews. "Some people love the classic look of them, especially when they're freshly planed," Hurley said, "but other people say, I don't feel like I can sit on those in nice clothes."
After looking at options, including the benches recently installed in the central business district, staff and the Parks and Recreation Commission settled on a model made from the same materials but with a more classic design, including a slight wave to the ends. The commission recommended the design unanimously at its May meeting. The new benches carry a 20-year warranty and an expected life of 20 to 30 years.
Because the Village Green holds special status in the city charter, changes to it require approval from six of the seven council members. The replacement passed 7-0.
A debate over sponsorships, deferred
The longer conversation was about a different idea: opening Village Green benches to sponsorship or donation. The city already has a program that lets residents donate benches in other parks, but it has steered donors away from the Village Green under longstanding council direction, and the guidelines haven't been updated since 2014.
One council member urged the city to revisit that, suggesting the city "get creative in opening up some of these benches to sponsorship" as a way to let residents honor a connection to Worthington. The member acknowledged the historical worry that too many names could make the Green "feel like a cemetery" but argued the city could write guidelines to avoid that.
Council President Rachael Dorothy said she wasn't ready to take up the sponsorship question now. "I am not in favor of talking about the sponsorship program at this moment in time," she said, noting the 2014 guidelines took council considerable time to develop and that the topic wasn't on the current priority list. "I'm ready to talk about replacing these benches on the Village Green. But at some point in the future, we could revisit." Several members agreed the guidelines were due for another look, given that more than a decade had passed and the council has since turned over.
City staff noted that any revisit would have to compete with an already-full policy agenda, and that staff time is limited. Members also confirmed that approving the benches now wouldn't foreclose a sponsorship program later: the city could pay for the benches with the budgeted funds and, if it chose to, let sponsorships reimburse the cost later.
With the sponsorship question set aside for a future meeting, council approved the replacement, and staff expect to install the new benches this year.