STEUBENVILLE — Support is building for a proposed all-inclusive playground at Steubenville’s Jim Wood Park.

Several county officials sat in on a 45-minute presentation Tuesday by members of Unlimited Play, a Missouri-based non-profit dedicated to making play areas available to everybody, regardless of age or ability. Unlimited Play is currently working with more than 60 communities across the United States.

Unlimited Play partners with communities, meeting regularly with the local steering committee and helping create fundraisers, researching grants and foundations and putting together a fundraiser list.

The goal, members said, is to create something where “everybody has a place and friendships can be cultivated that might not otherwise be cultivated.”

Councilman Tracy McManamon, who called the committee meeting, said he plans to gauge the full council’s reaction to the proposal at the July 22 meeting.

“I will ask for a consensus next week and then introduce a resolution as well,” he said after the meeting.

He told council Jim Wood Park has the space for the project and it’s flat so they wouldn’t have to move a lot of dirt to do it. He said they’re thinking, “and that’s all we’re doing is thinking, of putting it inside the walking track.” He also said members of the exploratory committee are also kicking around the idea of asking local contractors to help make it happen.

If it happens, he said, “It’s not going to be a city project, it’s going to be a community project. That’s why partnering with Mike Zinno (superintendent of Jefferson County Board of Developmental Disabilities) and partnering with the county commissioners is so important. It’s really going to be a community opportunity for us to do something like this.”

Zinno, who was at the meeting, said it’s “a big ask” for the community.

“We want to do this right,” he said. “There will be lot of naysayers saying we can’t (get it done–we can, but it’s going to take a while, it’s going to take time. It is a big ask and I want to see it done right and to do it right is going to take money and time.”

Mayor Jerry Barilla pointed out it wouldn’t just be for kids with mental or physical challenges, adding that it also wouldn’t be community restrictive.

“It’s not just for Steubenville,” he added. “You’re talking Toronto, Mingo, Weirton … people will drive for hours to come to it.”

Mindy Aleksiejczyk, president of the Developmental Disabilities Board and the mother of a child with disabilities, said an inclusive playground would let her child and so many others like him build friendships with able-bodied kids.

“We can have kids get exposure to individuals with disabilities,” said Aleksiejczyk, who currently runs a nearly 300-member Facebook support group for parents of children with special needs. “It opens a whole world–right now I’m sitting on the sidelines with my son because around the playground area at Jim Wood Park there’s that big black barrier and yeah, it’s tough to push his chair through grass, through mulch, through gravel, and he loves to swing. He loves to be around people. He loves to be outside. So many families in this area are looking for something like this … There is a need. There will be support. We need this. We need to support this, and we need to show that Steubenville, Jefferson County, really wants to be inclusive, because I also run inclusive events, and these families love them. We’re craving more inclusivity and the ability to have things like this

Commissioner Tony Morelli voiced his support as well, saying, “I see the county participating as much as we can. It’s a pretty neat thing.”

Morelli said over the years he’s heard a lot of ‘you can’t do that, you can’t do that we don’t have the money.’ Well, we’ve got to find it somehow. We’ll help.”

During the business meeting that followed, council officially said its goodbyes to Fire Chief Carlo Capaldi, retiring after 33 years with the department.

“It’s been my true pleasure and an honor to work with him,” City Manager Jim Mavromatis said. “I knew I could depend on him. And he wasn’t a man that just let his troops go out there and fight fires–he was right there with him. That says a lot about (him).”

Mavromatis reminded council it was Capaldi who launched the city’s EMT program and said “it’s worked out great here.” He also applauded Capaldi’s wife, Dawn, because as a public servant, “there’s days you’re gone out there. It takes a special woman behind the man. And sir, you have that.”

Capaldi thanked Mavromatis and council members, current and past, for their support, as well as his department. “Without them, none of what we’ve done would have gotten done. And over the years I’ve worked with some great people, great firemen, great fire officers, great union leaders, great administrators, great council people. Without all of them, I wouldn’t be in this position today. So, I appreciate serving everyone and I’d do it all again if I could.”

In other business:

• McManamon said the developer he’s talked to about bringing Dollar General to the old Grant school site in the south end isn’t ready to meet with city officials next week as he’d hoped.

“They’re still having some conversations,” he said. “So, I’ll let you know when we can (schedule that).”

• McManamon also reported that the contractor who built the new Chipotle was effusive in his praise of the building and inspections department. He said Chipotle corporate bigwigs will be coming to town in a few weeks.

• Councilwoman Heather Hoover is planning to ask council’s blessing on a proposal allowing businesses to adopt city-owned parcels and in exchange for keeping them mowed, put a sign up letting residents know who is doing the work.

• Councilman Royal Mayo took umbrage with McManamon calling a recreation committee meeting without consulting him as chair of council’s recreation committee, telling him he will return the favor and call an unscheduled meeting of one of the committee’s McManamon chairs.

“It’s supposed to come through me, it’s supposed to come through the chairman of the committee,” he said.