Now that the fishing pier at Red Bridge Park is officially open to the public, Cicero Parks Superintendent Charlie Cambre and others are already working on the next enhancement: Indiana’s only handicap accessible kayak and canoe launch.
Miller
“In the next month of two Charlie is going to start the fundraising for the launch,” said Rusty Miller, Cicero Town Council member and parks department liaison.
This new handicap accessible kayak and canoe launch will be near the fishing pier.
“It will be a universally accessible launch,” Cambre said. “To my understanding, it will be the only one in the state.”
Kayaking is popular in the Cicero area and a new launch could increase that.
“We get a lot of people kayaking on the weekends,” Miller told The Reporter. “We had to get approval from the Rosenberg family [to plan the new launch] and Charlie got us that approval. This will be a huge benefit. We may have to add more parking.”
Miller expects this new feature to be, “a huge attraction for Cicero and all of central Indiana.”
Cambre agreed that the need is already present.
Cambre
“I’ve done the impact study for about ten years now and it needed an update, so I updated my five-year master plan,” Cambre explained. “We had about 30 people attend each session and we had about 70 people respond to an online questionnaire. Within that we had a lot of response for kayaking.”
That was no surprise, since kayakers are a common sight already.
“Kayaks are launching now off our property at Red Bridge Park,” Cambre said. “Since I have seen a lot of activity I got permission to get this done. Permission had to come from the Rosenberg family.”
Miller noted that the new launch, like the pier, will not come with a big price-tag for area taxpayers.
“We have a unique situation with our parks because we can sell gasoline and rent boat docks,” Miller explained. “Not too many communities have a situation like ours. That helps bring revenue to our parks. The marina helps fund the parks so we do not need to take much money out of our general fund for parks.”
The other reason this will not become a burden for taxpayers is Cambre’s fiscal responsibility.
“Charlie is very good with his budgets,” Miller said. “He controls his money well so we can do things like these project when we get grants. The Friends of the Parks do a lot of fundraising for us as well.”
While the details are no finalized yet, Shae Kmicikewycz is grant writer for this project, as she was for the newly opened fishing pier. Cambre and Miller both pointed to Kmicikewycz as a person without whom these projects would not come to fruition.
When asked how he came up with the idea of the state’s only universally accessible kayak launch, Cambre said he is always concerned about such things.
“I’m all about accessibility,” Cambre said. “That’s what the pier is. So, it only makes sense to make the launch accessible to everyone.