Private School Seeks Public Space

An editorial from the Northwest Current, December 9, 2009, followed by a response a week later:


A dream of fields

Neighbors have rejected the Maret School’s proposal to construct an athletic field at Ward 4’s Upshur Park in exchange for exclusive access to the space from 3:30 to 6 p.m. during the school year.

While we thought Maret’s plan was worthy of consideration, we respect the residents’ decision and appreciate the considerate way all parties handled the discussion.

Access to parkland is a sticky subject in Northwest D.C., where many private entities find playing fields scarce and residents carefully guard their public spaces. Any plan that would appear to take over a public park is certain to face resistance, especially when a well funded private school is behind it.

Even though Maret requested access for only two-and-a-half hours a day, the idea of restrictions on a public field can be unappealing to many.

Residents were also understandably concerned that the changes to the park would make it less useful to the community. And some noted that the work could impact the D.C. Parks and Recreation Department’s plans to rebuild a playground and install a dog park there.

Maret officials said they are always looking for fields and would still be interested if community members change their minds. Perhaps once the city-funded work — expected to begin in the spring — is done, the parties can revisit the idea.

http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/NW%20Dec.%209%203.pdf

(page 12)


From the Northwest Current, December 16, 2009:

Maret field proposal was not fully vetted

VIEWPOINT
CHARLES G. MYERS

Your Dec. 9 editorial “A dream of fields” started with a misconception. Neighbors did not reject the Maret School’s proposal to construct a first-class athletic field at Ward 4’s Upshur Park in exchange for exclusive access to the space from 3:30 to 6 p.m. weekdays during the school year. In fact, Ward 4 Council member Muriel Bowser rejected the proposal without consulting the neighborhood at large.

I have lived four blocks from the park for 35 years and raised two children without the benefit of adequate park or athletic field space in our neighborhood. I am currently a member of the board of the Friends of 16th Street Heights Parks and was present when representatives from Maret presented their proposal to our group in August. This was several months after their initial presentation to us in a meeting at the Department of Parks and Recreation headquarters.

After much discussion, we concluded that the existence of too many opinions — ranging from enthusiastic support to pointed skepticism — prevented the group from taking a formal position on the proposal. Instead, we recommended that community meetings be held to obtain a broader sense of our neighbors’ thoughts on the proposal’s value.

This was conveyed to Council member Bowser in a meeting in early September that included Ximna Hartsock, then interim director of the parks department. The proposal had been sketchily presented at an Advisory Neighborhood Commission 4C meeting a month earlier, but it was the last topic at 9:30 p.m., after all but a few of the attendees had left, and it had not even been on the published agenda.

Maret’s proposal to the D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation was to spend as much as an estimated $4 million to construct an artificial turf field, substantially larger than the current field, without encroaching on the 2010 plans to rebuild the pool and park space already there. The school said the area would be large enough for overlapping full-size baseball, football and soccer fields. Maret expected exclusive use of the field for two-and-a-half hours weekdays during the school year and roughly five hours on three or four Saturdays in the fall. It also planned to use the field some of the two weeks before Labor Day, although that time was never specifically defined. The Department of Parks and Recreation would then have been able to manage the remaining time for both open community use and permits for use by youth and adult sports groups.

The project promised to solve a number of problems the community has faced for many years. The current softball field and tiny soccer play space are mud holes in wet weather and too small for use by any sport other than baseball for 10-year-olds. Youth sports organizations in our neighborhood suffer from a shortage of quality athletic fields, and we have no artificial turf field in Ward 4. The Columbia Heights community has few parks large enough for pickup soccer games.

The arrangement would have provided Maret exclusive access for approximately 12 percent of daylight hours during the year and would have been in place for 10 years. After this, Maret would have relinquished all rights unless an extension was negotiated. The community would have gotten a first-class field maintained by private funds while benefiting thousands of children and adults within our community — at no cost to the taxpayer.

After the meeting in September, Council member Bowser told the Department of Parks and Recreation that she did not want to pursue this opportunity. I asked her why in a conversation several weeks later. She said the community did not want it. I pointed out that the community members had never been given a chance to voice their opinions in a public meeting with the proposal fully visible.

It is unfortunate that our neighborhood was not given an opportunity to review the proposal and to decide its value for ourselves.

Charles G. Myers is a resident of Crestwood.

http://www.currentnewspapers.com/admin/uploadfiles/NW%20Dec.%2016%201.pdf

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