NEWPORT — After sitting dormant for several years, the carousel at Easton’s Beach might be receiving a well-needed checkup from the city.

“It’s sort of a request for status,” Beach Commission member Elaine Trainer said at the commission’s Sept. 7 meeting. “Go look at it, see what it takes (to restore it) and the people who would be able to assess it are the maintenance people we hired in the past.”

During the meeting that Wednesday, Beach Commission Chair Richard Klaffky and Recreation Administrator Erik Reis told the rest of the Beach Commission of City Manager Joseph Nicholson’s interest in getting an inspection conducted on the carousel at Easton’s Beach. The building the carousel sits inside of was deemed “structurally deficient” in 2021 alongside the Snack Bar building, which began a still ongoing process to design replacement buildings for the site.

However, the 1950s-era carousel horses are mounted on a central steel column independent from the rest of the building, and therefore could be spared from the demolition process.

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Trainer was the main commission member looking into ways to preserve the carousel during this facilities plan transition. At the Aug. 3 Beach Commission meeting, she presented a memo from the commission requesting the city inspect the current conditions of the carousel.

“First of all, we want to inspect the carousel and see what the current status is, period,” Trainer said at the Aug. 3 meeting, summarizing the requests in the memo to the city. “Second, it says that we can do the preventative or repair if we need to but, in addition, a separate effort is to solicit bids. There’s two companies listed here for carousel restoration. I think both of them can store it while they’re restoring it, but we don’t have any idea of how much it costs.”

In August and at the September meeting, Commission member Demetri Damaskos argued the city should remove the carousel from its building first and store it in a city-owned facility elsewhere rather than attempt to repair it on-site. However, Trainer said the idea is to investigate what condition the carousel is in first before moving ahead to dismantle or store it elsewhere, which could be costly for the city or cause further damage to the attraction.

“When you have a piece of equipment this old, does it need climate control, or are they going to shove it in a warehouse somewhere,” Trainer said. “We need to know because we want it to be stored appropriately so it doesn’t decline any further.”

Reis also said there are no city facilities available to house the carousel as Damaskos requested. At the September meeting, Commission member Aly Oakley agreed it was worth checking the status of the carousel first before removing it from the building.

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“It might be like ‘Can’t take it out yet until A, B and C are done,’ or it could be like, ‘It’s good to go, go take it out of the building,’” Oakley said. 

As for the rest of the facilities plan, the timeline has been pushed again while the city waits for further revisions from the architects. Originally, the city was expecting to receive updated plans and host a workshop with the City Council on the beach facilities this month, however Klaffky said the workshop may have to wait until October or November.