How to protest closing of a park?

September 25, 2012 2:35 PM

Is there anything I can do about a local park closing for half a year? I have never done any community organizing and don't know where to start...

There is a local park near to where I live that is the most heavily used park I have ever seen. In the evenings/on weekends it's filled with people walking their dogs, playing children, people doing sports, etc. In the winter, parents bring their kids there to play in the snow and run around. We live in a highly dense urban area, there are just not many places around where a child can run around in circles to get tired enough for bed.

So today the Department of Public Works closed the park down to replant the turf for soccer playing. The field is only used for soccer on Saturday mornings for youth soccer league. Now the entire park is surrounded by four foot tall chain link fence, and will be until late April ostensively so the "grass can take root". I'm angry seeing so many people lose out on our communal space so a few can have nicer turf for their small league soccer game. It's just not fair to this neighborhood, the pets, the kids and everyone else.

Now the question: Is there something I can do about this? What would make sense? Write an article in a newspaper, write a petition and go door to door for signatures (how many signatures would be enough?), call the City Hall and find out who made the decision to do this? I realize I probably won't get the field re-opened, but it feels like there is something I should do to speak up for this neighborhood.

posted by Shusha to law & government (8 answers total)

First call city hall and find out what the dilly-o. There may be a grant that can only be used for this purpose and the money has to be spent before the end of the year.

If it's a done deal, then no sense in getting all riled up about it. What do you want them to do now? Destroy the new grass? Open up a portion of the park. Be really sure about what you want to have happen.

You can't turn back the clock to before the grass was planted, if you want something, make it reasonable and achievable or else you'll just be another tree-hugging, crank.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 2:38 PM on September 25, 2012 [7 favorites]

Soccer leagues are notorious for taking over parks and excluding other users.

Make up a little petition and get in your elected representative's face with signatures and you can reverse this.
posted by jamjam at 2:48 PM on September 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Is it a city or county park...? Then contact your alderperson/county supervisor/whatever (the person who represents your area that's in charge of the park).
posted by drezdn at 3:08 PM on September 25, 2012

Organize a group of neighborhood users as a "Friends of the Park". Have a couple spokespeople among that group and then have a group discussion about the neighborhood needs for the park. It also helps to come up with plans on how your group can improve the park and maintain it. The government is the people and if your group can provide maintenance and watch services for the park then you are doing your part for its "ownership". Don't be one of those people who expect the government to provide all sorts of services without giving back by volunteering certain simple and basic duties.

When you have a plan for neighborhood "ownership" then you will have a stronger position to expect certain group rights and can present those to local elected officials.
posted by JJ86 at 3:16 PM on September 25, 2012 [2 favorites]

Ask if there was any kind of public notice about the closure ahead of time-- because if there was a notice that you just didn't happen to see, hollering at Parks and/or Public Works employees about 'making a decision' that no one bothered to care about until after the fact is not going to get you anywhere.

If the park is already closed down and the new grass is planted, it probably does need some time to take root properly. If Public Works opens the park before the new landscaping takes hold, you're going to have a muddy mess on your hands, and it's going to take more time, more money, and probably more closures to repair the damage. One long closure, while annoying, is less costly (tax$) than multiple smaller and/or shorter closures.

It may not be feasible to 'fix' the issue immediately-- but you probably can work with Public Works to help develop a process that keeps the local folks in the loop better, and possibly allows the neighborhood to have some input in the park maintenance schedule. Please do remember that the park does legitimately need regular maintenance-- some of which will require shutdowns of portions and/or all of the park periodically. Unmaintained parks aren't neighborhood amenities, and the whole reason you and your neighbors like this park is because it's a nice place to be, right?

I'd recommend asking Public Works to develop a community notice system regarding maintenance schedules (if they don't have one) or making reasonable suggestions for how to improve the notice system (if they do have one). For example, if they post notices online, ask them to add an RSS link to the notice page so interested community members don't have to just remember to check the website.

You could also ask Public Works (or possibly your neighborhood association or the city department that provides support to neighborhood associations, of there is one) to share the maintenance schedule for the park. Find if there might be alternative ways to schedule maintenance (staggered reseeding?)-- but also bear in mind that those will cost more. If your community is willing and able to fund the more-expensive-but-less-disruptive maintenance schedule, there are probably ways to do that-- like Local Improvement Districts (LIDs), but they have to be approved by most of the impacted residents.

I'm imagining that you'll have options that look something like this:

Choice A, Current: close entire park for 6 months every 2 years (cheapest, large disruption that happens less often)
Choice B, Staggered maintenance: close 1/2 of the park every year (more expensive, moderate disruption more often)
Choice C, Staggered maintenance: close 1/4 of the park every 6 months (most expensive, minor disruption frequently)
Choice D, Reduce maintenance: (probably not the one you ought to go with)

If your community decides that Choice B is *way* better-- enough that you and your neighbors are willing to add a local Parks levy to provide maintenance funds-- and you can show community support, you may be able to enact some changes.

If your community thinks Option B is way better but isn't willing to pay for the increased cost, you're going to need to have a rational explanation why your community is entitled to a higher-than-strictly-necessary portion of the Public Works park maintenance budget than other communities. Be prepared to hear that the budget is already stretched thin or beyond-thin to do basic upkeep, and that spending more $ on your park means that someone else's park can't get the grass mowed.

And yes, on preview-- parks can be under the authority of a city, or a county, or a parks district-- it really depends on your location. And a Friends Of [Park] group that provides volunteer maintenance is a great idea-- but make sure you communicate with the park authority and are doing actually-needed maintenance, and that the park authority knows it.
posted by Kpele at 3:20 PM on September 25, 2012 [3 favorites]

It is very possible your city just paid something like $300,000 to re-sod. If the turf has been laid, the city is going to protect the investment of your tax dollars by closing the park and letting the turf take hold. In other words, this is probably not reversible.

On the other hand, three months is average. I don't know what the weather is like in your area but six months seems nuts.

You can use the new fences to put up flyers and organise the suggested Friends of the Park group and see if someone from Recreation or your Alderperson will come talk to you. You'll also provide a community group they can liase with in future, which is a good thing.
posted by DarlingBri at 4:31 PM on September 25, 2012 [1 favorite]

Thank you everyone! You made me think of issues I haven't considered. I will attempt to find out why such a lengthy closing time is necessary, and if it was selected for unclear reasons I will mobilize the neighborhood to sign a petition to get it opened sooner.
posted by Shusha at 6:34 AM on September 26, 2012

You might also look at the layout of the park - exactly how much is the soccer field compared to the rest of the park, and did they resod the entire park or just the soccer field? As you research the time required for the sod to take root, maybe you find out that the soccer field might need more time since it would have heavier usage afterward, but that the other parts of the park would be ok to open sooner. So maybe the whole park could be closed for 3 months, but then they move the chain link fence so that only the soccer field is closed for the full 6 months.

(I don't know anything about your park or required sod times - I'm just throwing out another idea to think about).
posted by CathyG at 8:04 AM on September 26, 2012