If it flies I hope no children or animals fall in car grease or trip on beer cans –

Is the City going to remove grass and put in cememt so it can be hosed down ???????????????

A car’s weight significantly compresses the air out of soil, especially if the soil has been fluffed up for decades by frost and earthworms. Compacted soil does NOT support lush plant growth for a long time. Do we really want to make a few bucks now that we pay for with long-lasting deterioration of the park surface?

I have lived across Allmendinger Park for almost 30 years and believe I have more intimate knowledge of the park’s use and misuse than do the Parks and Rec people who have proposed turning it into a parking lot. I have seen football tailgaters drive their vehicles through the park, dump their trash and hot coals from their grills in the park, urinate in the open. I have seen high schoolers come to the park to deal drugs and engage in fistfights. I have watched parents of little league football players park their cars illegally around the park and leave their trash on the ground after watching their children practice. I have listened to loud parties in the park after it is supposed to be closed for the night. More often than not the police have not responded to calls from residents by the park to address the neighborhood’s concerns because of a lack of available manpower and the assignment of a low priority to these calls. The only effective means to address these concerns, I have found, is to be seen writing down the license plate numbers of offending vehicles. When the owners of the vehicles see that happening they see that somenoe cares about what they are doing in the park and tend to quickly modify their behavior rather than face potential consequences for it. Park workers I have talked with over the years have consistently stated they do not have the manpower available to address many of these issues; so it falls to neighborhood residents to care about the park, police the park and look out for maintaining the quality of the neighborhood for both residents and non-resident users of the park.

Now Parks and Rec sees the park as a potential cash cow, not a public trust. They would turn it into a parking lot and a trash dump for non-residents. There is no way a few park employees will manage the plethora of problems that will arise for the neighborhood if this proposal goes into effect. Once the psychological barrier is broken regarding the purpose of this piece of land, the first unrepaired window will have occurred and the city will be complicit in the neighborhood’s decline.

I have always supported proposed millage increases for city parks in order to maintain the city’s quality of life, whether or not I use particular parks and services. If this park becomes just another revenue stream, I will know the Parks and Rec Department has lost sight of its mission. I will never again vote to support parks in the city.

Despite the similarity between the two words, parks are not for parking; parks are for recreation. If you’ve ever seen this park on the morning of a game you’d never want to fill it with cars. Fans are tailgating; kids are running around; people are tossing footballs, Frisbies and bocce balls.

If you’ve ever seen the gridlock around this park the hour after a game you’d never plan to have a couple hundred additional cars trying to exit the park and enter the streets.

And as was pointed out above: what about the condition of the park during the season, after the first few games and up until the re-seeding has any affect? Unusable?

Not cool. Help us out here Marcia and Margie.

Also, +1 re the “dick move” on #3. Rod simply stated it perfectly.

The last time this came up, the mayor and 4th ward council members shot it down.

From the article it appears that neighborhood representatives were aware of the discussion at the parks commission and spoke at the meeting.

You will surely have a lot of time to be included in the decision, council won’t vote on the budget until May.