By Barbara Augsdorfer, editor for the Effingham Herald

Residents of Rincon – especially the kids -- are on the path to having more places to play, thanks to several projects that are ongoing and some that are in the near future.

In addition to the new playground equipment at Patriot’s Park, along with new bathrooms in the planning stage; upgrades to Macomber Park, and construction and landscaping beginning at Veteran’s Park on Hwy. 21 in front of the library; now Giles Park on 7th Street is pegged to get a much-needed upgrade and facelift, with a donation from a local business.

Jamie and Mary Cain, owners of Empire Gym in Rincon, donated $20,000 to the city during the Rincon City Council meeting Oct. 28.

The money will be used for, “pickleball courts or whatever is going to get the kids playing outside an active,” said Mary Cain.

Safety is also a big concern for the Cains.

“We rode by Giles Park last night, and it was just after dark There were kids running around out there in the dark trying to play,” Jamie Cain said. “We're going to donate -- we have lighting. We have commercial parking lot lights that we're going to donate. We currently have four of them. If we need to get four more, or we need to get eight more.

“Whatever, we need to do to light that place up to number one (and) make it so that those kids in that neighborhood can continue to practice or play after dark; but also, to make it a safer place after dark, and also to lessen the chances of vandalism,” Cain continued.

“You know, for years we played football in the outfield of our baseball fields. We've been talking about plans to have a place just for our football players and our cheerleaders -- places to practice, places to play,” Mayor Pro Tem Kevin Exley added. “We were thinking about usable spaces, and we have (Giles) park that is just under-used.”

Transparency Portal and storm cleanup

In other action, City Manager Robert Byrd said that the new “Transparency Portal” has been added to the city’s web page. The transparency portal can be seen at www.cityofrincon.com by clicking on the “Transparency Portal” button on the bottom of the page. In addition to approved budgets from 2020-2024, and audited financial statements from 2020-2022, residents can see the list of completed, current and upcoming projects by clicking on the “projects list” button.

Effingham County reported on its Facebook page, that as of Oct. 29, more than 21,500 cubic yards of storm debris had been collected from unincorporated Effingham County and the City of Rincon – not including debris that was taken to the county’s convenience center by private citizens.

“There’s still probably a good 40- to 50-days of cleanup left,” Byrd said. “Some of it doesn’t make sense that they’ll clean up one side of a road, and then not come back to clean up the other side for two or three weeks,” Byrd added. “But they’re working and sending us updates.”

Other council actions

·       The city council added three paid holidays for employees – President’s Day, Columbus Day, and a “floating holiday” that an employee can take off, such as their birthday.

·       The council discussed possibly hiring a landscape company to “clean up” overgrowth on curbs along the city’s main roads, such as Hwy. 21 and Nineth Street; but decided it wasn’t cost effective.

Councilmember Mona Underwood added her displeasure that many curbs are overgrown with grass and need to be cleaned up. “If we look good, our citizens will feel good.” Adding that if the city wants to attract new businesses, it must look good.

“We got to keep them clean for drainage purposes as well,” Mayor Pro Tem Exley added. The city pays Effingham County for inmate labor to do landscape maintenance on city-owned property. The city and county have had the prison labor agreement since 2015.

·       Also discussed was creating a schedule for the new street sweeper so that neighborhood streets could be swept in addition to Hwy. 21.

There was discussion about sweeping residential streets, and posting “No Parking” signs to let residents know when their street was scheduled to be swept. The city is looking for a new code enforcement officer and one of that person’s duties is to write parking tickets for cars parked on streets during scheduled sweeping days.