Park Improvements Spark Criticism

Foundations have been poured for four new picnic tables and grills in Goffe Street Park — where some neighbors plan to gather Thursday to try to stop the work from finishing as planned.

The tables and grills are part of a package of improvements the city spent three years planning in the park. They include a new splash pad and rubber play surface.

The four tables and grills are being placed in the southeastern corner of the park by the basketball courts.

Some neighbors who said they were not part of the original planning meetings object to the plan. They want the tables spread out throughout the park, where adults using the horseshoe pits or ballfields have closer access.

Deserie ​“Aunt Ish” Brown, a stalwart of events at the horseshoe pits, is organizing the community meeting in the park Thursday at 6 p.m. to demand a halt to the construction while more neighbors get to weigh in. She argued, adults should have separate places to gather apart from kids playing basketball or on swings.

She also argued that the new splash pad should not be next to swings, bcause of dangers of kids slipping.

Patricia Powell and William (who declined to give his last name), neighbors who live directly across the street from the park on County Street, echoed her critiques.“A group of young people hang out” at that end of the park, said Patricia Powell, advocating a ​“nice quiet place” for older neighbors to gather at tables and grill.

Brown said she had met informally with city officials about the design in January 2020, and received a promise for an in-person public meeting on the subject. Then the pandemic hit, and the meeting didn’t happen.

Shafiq Abdussabur, who’s running unopposed to serve as the surrounding neighborhood’s alder, and Republican mayoral candidate John Carlson issued statements supporting revisiting the design of the improvements. ​“Any park renovation should include public opinion with priority given to those who live in close proximity to the park. Parks are primarily used by residents who reside in the area and they’d be the best source of determining what their park needs and wants are. Under my administration, no park renovation would happen without public notice and input from the local community,” Carlson said.

City officials said they did get neighborhood input — lots of it — before beginning the state-funded work. They held a community meeting in the park in 2018, another meeting at Hillhouse a year later.

Jill Marks, the current alder and the force behind reviving Friends of Goffe Street Park, said she and others also knocked on doors to get neighborhood input, as well as reporting to the community management team.

Part of the issue is determining who are ​“the neighbors,” and who speaks for the public.

Rebecca Bombero — who directly oversaw the first part of the process for the improvements as city parks director, and now oversees the parks department as deputy chief administrative officer — defended the process. In addition to the meetings and outreach, the parks commission approved the design as part of a public process, she noted.

Public meetings were well attended, and many ​“stakeholders” in the neighborhood, from park friends members to the alder, weighed in, according to Bombero.

The picnic tables and grills need to be clustered in one spot in order to leave room elsewhere in the park to accommodate many large events that take place there, from community festivals to concerts to movie showings to Pop Warner Little League, Bombero said. She also said concerns were raised about preserving ​“sight lines” for police keeping an eye on potential problems in the park.

Chaz Carmon, who helms the park-based anti-violence youth group Ice The Beef, said he participated in some of that canvassing to get neighborhood input about the design. Some neighbors wanted to see the horseshoe pits moved because of concerns about activities of some adults who weren’t necessarily participating in the games but hanging out nearby, he said.

Carmon said he doesn’t have a strong opinion about where the grills and tables should go. He’s concerned more about making sure adults can gather

“What are we really mad about? It’s hard to understand,” Carmon said. ​“Guys, you’re arguing over picnic tables and a grill in a park? We either spread them out or we don’t spread them out. I don’t understand why we’re not arguing about gun violence. Why are we talking about picnic tables?” He said neighbors should be able to ​“have a conversation” about where to place the tables and grills, come to a consensus, realize not everyone’s view will prevail, then move on to more pressing matters.