A Macdonald resident remains optimistic about a new playground coming to her community following a presentation she gave to the RM of Portage la Prairie on December 13th, 2022.

Taryn Bailey explains that she and a handful of other Macdonald young families are looking for an area where their kids can meet up freely without their parents being directly there.

Bailey shares that in the past, there was a baseball diamond with swing sets and other pieces of equipment, but she says the RM was not maintaining the land and even had to be asked by other residents to cut the grass.

"Then that was when the RM sort of remembered that they had this piece of property, and they sold it. So, there's two houses there, soon to be a third house built there."

Now, she and others are looking to bring a new playground to town with the help of the RM.

"I would really like for them to contribute something. I understand that, as a town, we probably have to do a little bit of fundraising. But the RM sold what space we did have for their own profit, and it has not come back to our town."

The area in which the playground is proposed to be.The area in which the playground is proposed to be.

Bailey says that when they do get an area back in town, her brother has volunteered to maintain the land by cutting the grass and taking care of what needs to be done.

"There's just a very big lack of RM help around here, so it would be really nice if we get something, since we all pay taxes," continues Bailey. "We would like to have a little bit of something for our kids to do so that they would still want to live in the RM of Portage when they grow up."

Bailey adds that, as a whole, her community would like to work together to get the ball rolling on this.

"I would like to see the RM do something because it's not really fair for our community to have to pay for it all, and the RM does nothing when they sold all the land and sold our park."

The RM council is set to meet today (January 10th), and Bailey notes that she has been told that they will discuss the matter and get back to her.