URBANA – An agreement to lease a small lot in the Dobbins Downs neighborhood north of Champaign to be used for a community playground will come before the Champaign County Board Thursday night.

Plans call for a playground to be built with money raised locally plus with a grant from KaBOOM!, a non-profit group that helps develop play spaces all over the United States.

The five-year land lease agreement with the Dobbins Downs Community Improvement Association is part of a slim agenda for the county board meeting that will begin at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Brookens Administrative Center, 1776 E. Washington St., U.

Dobbins Downs is a mostly unincorporated neighborhood north of Interstate 74 with about 550 homes. Because most of the area is outside the Champaign Park District, it has no dedicated parks or playgrounds.

The neighborhood association last month asked the county to donate a small vacant lot at 2603 Campbell Drive for use as a play lot. And in recent weeks members of the group contacted the Washington, D.C.-based KaBOOM!, which may provide about $35,000 in playground equipment from Playworld Systems Inc.

"We were contacted by these folks through the United Way," said Norm Davis, a resident of Dobbins Downs and the treasurer of the association. "Basically what we need to do is come up with about $7,500 and some volunteers to work on the thing. It might be a little more involved than what we were originally looking at, but that's OK.

"We are in the process of testing the soil for lead and arsenic to make sure that it's OK. But basically this is an answer to prayers."

"Technically it's not a certainty, but my confidence is very, very high," said Brian Sides, an attorney for the group.

"It would be an amazing gift," said Leslie Kimble, president of the association. "It's been a dream waiting to happen. It's neat to think it's actually going to come to fruition in less than three months."

But a spokesman for KaBOOM! said no decision has been made on funding the Dobbins Downs project.

"I think we'll have an announcement in a week to 10 days, maybe sooner," said Mike Vietti, a spokesman for KaBOOM! "We would like to build a project in that area and we have applications out to a number of organizations that are interested.

"And even if they're not awarded this time, we keep the application on file for a future award."

KaBOOM! has built 1,800 playgrounds since 1996, Vietti said. This year it plans to help develop about 180 facilities.

Tentatively, Sept. 25 already has been designated by an anonymous corporate sponsor as the build day for the playground, Kimble said.

"The corporate funder requested that we do the build day on that date, and I said 'Oh, thank God.' That's the one weekend in September that there's no (home Illinois) football game, so I'm hoping for a lot of community involvement," she said.

Before that time a KaBoom! representative would visit Dobbins Downs in early August for a four-hour site planning meeting, she said, known as Design Day.

"They really want the kids' involvement in this. That's what the Design Day is all about, asking the kids what they want in their playground," she said.

The neighborhood association has about $1,700 on hand, but will need to collect as much as $10,000 to meet KaBoom's goal, plus provide landscaping and other amenities for the playground, Sides said.

The property has been vacant since 2003 when a home on the lot was damaged by fire and later razed. Because the county owns the property it has had to pay about $380 a year in property taxes. But since the property now will be used by a not for profit group, no property taxes will be owed. The county also is asking for $50 a year in a lease payment for use of the lot, said County Administrator Deb Busey.

Other items on Thursday's agenda include:

– An appointment to the county board of health. Two people, Champaign attorney David Thies and Daniel Schreiber of Urbana, have applied for the position. Board Chair C. Pius Weibel said he will announce his nominee at Thursday's meeting.

– An addendum to the county's contract with Busey. It calls for freezing her annual salary at $125,000. The county also agrees to negotiate any potential changes to her contract next June.

"The contract stays the same. All it says is that we will negotiate next year. She has a reopener for next year," Weibel said. "It was like a five-minute negotiation."

– Ratification of a two-year contract with the county's AFSCME bargaining unit. The agreement, which has been under negotiation since last November, calls for a two-year wage and step grade freeze for 89 general unit employees, as well as similar clerical contracts with 22 circuit court employees, 32 circuit court employees and 14 state's attorney office employees. Health benefits also will be frozen, with the county continuing to pay 100 percent of the premium of health insurance for a single employee. The cost of the agreement to the county won't be known, Busey said, until sometime in August when health insurance contracts are determined.

There is a wage reopener for December 2010 should the county's financial situation improve, Busey said.

– A request for proposals for financial audit services for the county. The county has used the same audit firm – Bray, Drake, Liles, Richardson LLP – for 15 years. The county is seeking a new audit firm.

"It's generally recommended in the auditing world that you change every now and then," Weibel said. "So this is the time to do it."