345 SE 5th, Madras, OR 97741 | 541.475.2275
Balking at the `keep park' movement
Guest Editorial
On Saturday, Feb. 27, the weather was beautiful. Madras Elementary had families enjoying the playground and tennis courts; Sahalee Park was overflowing with children on the playground (including ours), teenagers playing basketball and many people visiting at the picnic tables. At Friendship Park, we didn't see a soul!
Friends of the Park is unfairly hiding behind the soccer program and low-income families as reasons to keep Friendship Park from being the site for our new police station/city hall.
We are personally familiar with both the soccer program and the west side of town. Not only do our children play soccer, we have also been soccer coaches, and we previously lived on First street behind Westside Elementary for 10 years. To begin with, the soccer program has moved all over the place. In the beginning, games were held on the football field of Westside Elementary and the parents sat on the bleachers. This last fall, when we coached, not a single game was held on that field even though it is a completely flat grassy area and provides seating for spectators. Instead, we were told to squeeze as many soccer fields as we could on to the uneven hills of Friendship Park so it looked like we really needed that space. We know because we helped paint the fields.
For several years, soccer was held at Juniper Hills and as a coach/parent we did not hear a single complaint! Look at other programs such as Little League and Kiwanis/Lions basketball. These are successful programs where kids of all income levels participate and travel to Juniper Hills, Culver, Warm Springs, Madras Elementary, Metolius Elementary, and JCMS. To say that we can only have soccer at Friendship Park is completely false! If Juniper Hills is the problem, which it isn't, we could use Madras Elementary (lots of flat open spaces) to hold the soccer program.
People have also made emotional and misleading pleas stating Friendship Park is the only green place available on the west side of town for low-income children to play.
Wrong again! Most children don't go to Friendship Park to play! They go to Westside playground or the wide-open grass football field, which is owned by the school district and will not be changed by the city's plans.
In the 10 years we lived on First Street, we never played at Friendship Park and in fact we rarely played at the Westside playground. The playground is lacking bathrooms, drinking fountains, seating and shade. (Hopefully, some of those amenities will be added to the west side, if we allow the city's project to continue.) When you drive by Westside Elementary, or Friendship Park, how often do you see children playing?
Now ask yourself how often our police department is used and who does it benefit? Our police station is used 24 hours a day, seven days a week and every person in Madras benefits. Our current police facility is ridiculously outdated and busting at the seams. I'm sure anyone interested could contact Chief Adams for a tour of their grossly inadequate building.
The new building will do more than just meet our police department's needs; it will also be a wonderful visible reminder of our police department, unlike the current building that looks very unwelcoming and unapproachable. The police department also has grant money that is in jeopardy if it is unable to move forward as scheduled.
Don't be misled; the public has known about the city's plans for Friendship Park. The city began holding public meetings in 2004 and after roughly six years, millions of dollars and lots of hours have been invested. I understand that we are living in hard economic times, but to start the process over now would be a costly mistake.
Maybe we have blind faith in our leaders but they are doing what we asked; spending their time and energy making tough decisions no one else wants to make. Are we saying we should never question our officials or that they are perfect? Of course not, but if the public chooses not to attend meetings and then complain after the fact, how can we expect them to do their jobs?
We really find it hard to believe that the people behind Friends of the Park are choosing now to protest the city's plans. We've read past issues of the Pioneer and members of this group seem very aware of current events in our community. So why have they waited until years into this process to complain? It feels like anti-development agenda is being hidden behind emotional pleas such as save our soccer program and save green parks for our children.
When you vote in May, please remember the soccer program has been just fine no matter where it was located and all the children can still play at Westside. In the future, if we as a community want to be more involved with the decision-making process, we need to be proactive, attend meetings and be involved from the beginning. Stop wasting our community's time and money.
If this is how we expect the city to operate, then we are setting them up to fail. We want to see Madras succeed! If you do, too, please vote against the Friends of the Park and for the future of our city.
Jennifer and Scott Flowers
Madras