Residents cry foul over park cutbacks
By Kelly Alm
At the east end of Haiti Street in Warrenton, children trickle through Robert Walker’s yard and onto his front porch, where they dispense coins into the same antiquated soda machine that his wife, the late Eva Walker, wanted for exactly this purpose.“She was always concerned about the children,” the 80-year old Walker said. “If it wasn’t for that soda box, I don’t know where the children here would go. I suppose they’d have to walk into town, where soda probably costs over a dollar.”
Today, the 7.5 acre Eva Walker Memorial Park, nestled between Alexandria Turnpike, Horner Street, and Haiti Street, adjacent to Robert Walker’s house, serves a similar purpose for the families of the surrounding community.
“People in this area can’t afford to use the WARF (Warrenton Aquatic and Recreational Facility),” Haiti resident Jenesha Lewis said. “Some people don’t have transportation. They need a place here where they can enjoy themselves.”
Warrenton Town Council members are currently debating the park’s level of use as justification for a $263,000 cut to the approximately $600,000 originally allotted for the development of the park.
The Capital Improvements Program (CIP) outlines three developmental phases for Eva Walker Park to occur between FY 2007 through FY 2009, with $181,000 allotted to Phase I, $225,000 to Phase II, and $212,000 to Phase III.
Phase I, for which the council approved the $180,000, was completed according to plan. Last year, the council approved $25,000 of the $225,000 for Phase II engineering work.
Town councilman and Parks and Recreation Committee Member John Albertella said he expected to see the remaining $200,000 for Phase II when the council voted on the budget this spring.
“I noticed two things,” Albertella said. “The remaining $200,000 for Phase II had been shaved down to $184,000. And Phase III was gone.”
Councilman and Parks and Recreation Chairman Dennie Sutherland is now proposing an additional $50,000 cut to Phase II.
“This all stems from two fields of thought,” Sutherland said at the meeting. “There's Mr. Albertella's field of thought, that we need to go forward with a lot of the project down at Eva Walker Park, and another field of thought that thinks there's not that much utilization of Eva Walker Park.”
Councilman David Norden agreed, expressing concern over whether the town is pumping money into a park that people don’t use.
“I don’t see Eva Walker Park as being that utilized, and I drive by it a lot,” he said.
Residents of Haiti Street, however, disagree.
“So many people use this park,” said Cori Robinson, who walks with her husband through the park during the evenings as her children — who range from two to 10 years old — play in the grass or ride their bikes along the trail added in Phase I.
She and two other mothers on Haiti Street agreed that the trail prevents the children from riding their bikes through the street, which does not have sidewalks.
“This is a much-needed facility here,” Robinson said. “What else can children do here? Go to the library or go to the park.”
She believes the more the town adds to the park, the more people it will attract.
Sutherland said that the proposed $50,000 cut is just an estimate, and added that with the current state of the economy, the town will be able to find materials and services for a lower cost than the estimates from a few years ago.
“Feasibly, I think with the reduced amount of money we can get enough bang for our buck, and make it as attractive as the first stage,” he said.
Either way, the proposed cut would eliminate a second $30,000 gazebo with picnic tables; $6,600 for rubber playground surfacing, reportedly safer than mulch; and $45,000 in new playground equipment, $5,000 of which would be used to refurbish the existing playground.
Albertella noted about a dozen items listed in the original CIP outline of Phase II and Phase III that he said are no longer on the agenda, including a tot lot, signage, a playground, a shelter, restrooms with storage, a water feature, enhanced landscaping, additional picnic tables and benches, and the reduction of a proposed 400-foot brick seating wall at the entrance to 200 feet.
The committee “did a lot of Phase III in Phase I,” Sutherland said. He said that the primary aspects eliminated in Phase III are the restrooms.
“I don’t really think the park needs restrooms,” Sutherland said. “This is a truly a community park. Most of the people live right there.”
Albertella sees such cutbacks as a stark contrast to the town’s approach towards the Warrenton Aquatic and Recreational Facility (WARF).
“It’s curious to me that a few years ago, the mantra was ‘build it and they will come,’” Albertella said. “And we did, with $30-plus million, and they still haven’t come.
“If the interest in reducing the project...is a function of utilization or under utilization, than how is it that we can pump in $2.1 million from the general fund into WARF which is clearly suffering and will continue to suffer from under-utilization?”
Albertella isn’t the only one taking notice of this discrepancy.
“There’s a lot of talk about it,” said Walker. “People notice a difference when they’re doing everything for other parks, how they spent all that money on that [WARF] and how they’re doing so little for a park right in town. It looks bad.”
On separate occasions, he and Albertella both expressed particular concern over the future of the playground.
The CIP calls for a $45,000 investment in a new two-part playground that would accommodate tots from three to six, and older children from six to 12 to replace old, and largely rusted existing equipment.
However, Sutherland and Bo Tucker, director of Public Works, said that $5,000 should be enough to refurbish the existing equipment, which Sutherland described as needing “immediate attention.”
Sutherland also pointed out that Warrenton will soon have a premiere playground for children at the WARF.
The “Fun for All” Committee, formed by parents who wanted a playground for Warrenton children, particularly one accessible to special-needs children, is working to raise $300,000 for a new “certified boundless” playground at the WARF. Rubberized flooring alone will cost $100,000.
This means little to those on Haiti Street.
“Not everyone in the town can afford the recreation facility,” Robinson said. “If you look at our rent compared to the car notes of those making these decisions, you’re talking about two totally different income brackets. Just to get to and from work with the price of gas is a struggle for us.”