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January 29, 2004

Park neighbors say city dumped debris

 

Yawu Miller

Louis Elisa was taking his morning walk in Franklin Park last Wednesday when he noticed the first of the Parks Department trucks unloading snow.

Four truckloads later, the basketball courts in the playstead area behind White Stadium were filled with a pile of snow about 70 feet long and 15 feet wide. Mixed in were chunks of ice, leaves, plywood and other debris including a shopping cart.

One driver told Elisa the snow came from the Boston Common. Elisa told the driver it is illegal to dump waste in a public park. The driver told Elisa he was following Parks Department orders.

Parks Department spokeswoman Mary Hinds said the snow deposited on the basketball courts consisted of ice shavings from the skating rink at the Frog Pond.

“We take the snow from the Frog Pond and put it there because the area is so small, there’s no other place,” she said.

Hinds said there is no space to dump the ice on the Common, citing Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection regulations requiring that snow be dumped on paved surfaces with drains.

Elisa said the dumping is evidence of a longstanding attitude of neglect the department has toward Franklin Park.

“It’s a continuing pattern of disrespect for Franklin Park,” Elisa said. “They continually fail to maintain the areas of the park adjacent to the African American community.”

Elisa says the department fails to adequately maintain the side of the park facing Seaver Street, at times dumping debris within view of the passing traffic.

“They never clean the leaves off Seaver Street,” he said. “There’s always broken glass and trash.”

While Elisa says the neglect is concentrated on the Seaver and Blue Hill Ave. sides of the park, Franklin Park Coalition board members Connie Cecil says it’s general.

“They dump stuff in the wilderness all the time,” Cecil said. “There’s wood chips from other parks. There are piles of stuff decomposing all over the wilderness. And it’s not like Franklin Park needs to pay city workers to import trash.”

The snow from the Common is particularly troubling, Cecil said. While children skate at the Frog Pond, they also play on the courts by the Playstead where the snow and debris were dumped.

“They do this because they think nobody cares and they can get away with it,” she said. “Imagine if they did this at Jamaica Pond or on the Commonwealth Mall or in the Public Garden. Franklin Park is one of Olmstead’s best parks and this is how they treat it. A world-class city? I don’t think so.”

Although debris including large chunks of ice, sticks, wood scraps and a shopping cart were clearly visible in the snow piles last week, Hinds denies the Parks Department has dumped anything other than snow.

“That’s all we’ve put there,” she said. “Of course when that melts, we’ll remove any of the debris that is there.”

Debris or no debris, Garrison Trotter Neighborhood Association member Dan Richardson said the dumping has to stop.

“They say they’re mandated to use Franklin Park,” he said. “I think that’s an unfortunate choice, particularly in a place where kids play year round.”

 

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