By this point, it feels like a broken record: The City of Charlottesville makes a decision regarding McIntire Park, the decision is publicized, outcry ensues, and the city ends up backpedaling. First, it was the softball fields at McIntire Park. Now, it’s the park’s wading pool.
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Forget about the parkway: It seems like the city keeps having to backpedal on McIntire Park programming, from the softball fields to the wading pool. |
“I think it is the responsibility of the elected officials to make an effort to go out and tell people what they are planning on doing and to find out how the people feel,” says Bob Fenwick, founder of savemcintire.com, member of the McIntire Park Preservation Committee and member of the Coalition to Preserve McIntire Park.
For Fenwick, the tension began in December 2007. With a 3-2 vote, City Council approved the ground lease for a YMCA to construct its facility within the park. In May of 2008, a master plan was approved for McIntire Park, and a staff report called for the two softball fields to be converted into a single, rectangular one. Softball enthusiasts were outraged.
“It was an accident if somebody who played ball found out about it,” says Fenwick. “Of all the people impacted, probably 90 percent or better did not know this was going on.” According to Fenwick, only after the decision was made, the softball community was made aware of the developments for the park. “It’s like there was a boulder at the top of the hill. We were not consulted about whether or not to push it off, but once it was headed downhill, we were invited to watch,” he says.
Brian Daly, director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, disagrees. “The decision regarding the YMCA was a public process,” he says. “There was a land lease advertised publicly, the lease was approved by City Council. The master plan for McIntire Park was a very public process. That has been done and all the decisions that have been made have been made in a public forum.”
Regardless of the public notice in that instance, the issue sprang up again last month after The Daily Progress ran articles exposing the city’s decision to shut down the wading pool at McIntire Park.
According to Daly, new sweeping regulations under the 2007 Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act would require up to $20,000 for updating. “We had made the recommendation to close the facility based upon the cost of bringing the pool up to compliance,” he says.
Resident Downing Smith, who spoke out at the April 6 City Council meeting, thinks otherwise. “I am afraid I have to criticize the department of parks and rec for trying to do this without any public input,” he says. He stressed that the facility “is not just a swimming pool,” but rather a gathering place. “It’s just something I don’t think we should lose,” he said.
Mayor Dave Norris says he and fellow councilors felt that the decision should have been made by Council after a public hearing process. “We felt, particularly after hearing what the public said [the night of the city council meeting] and in countless phone calls and e-mails, that people do value it and that it is a really unique experience having that wading pool available.”
In regards to the softball fields, Norris recognizes the concerns some residents have raised about not involving several key stakeholders in the decision. The stated purpose of the McIntire Park master plan was to find the correct location for the YMCA, explains Norris.
“It never occurred to [the softball community] that it might result in the softball fields being lost, and as a result, when the final plans were adopted, I think a lot of people in the softball community felt blindsided by it. And rightly so,” he says.
That’s what the new master plan planning process is intended to solve, says Daly. “It is an effort—a very specifically targeted effort—to be open, transparent and precise and consistent on how we are going to master plan parks in the future.”
The process will provide the community with a step-by-step guide of how the planning for parks will occur.
“There are numerous opportunities for the public to weigh into that process,” says Daly, stressing that the planning process will include several public meetings, a 30-day written comment period and public hearings.
“It is not much different from what we have done,” he says. “But it codifies when there will be public meetings, when there would be a public hearing, when there would be reviews, and the final adoption by City Council.”
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