Here is a summary list of Flad Park baskeball court issues raised at the Orchard Ridge Neighborhood Association Joint Action Teams meeting on May 13.  

Orchard Ridge Neighborhood Association Meeting (5/13/2009)

Flad Park Basketball Court Issues/Major Themes

Rude Behavior:

• Disrespect of patrons keeping others from using park
• Public urination on numerous occasions.
• Court users repeatedly use profanity, even when asked by neighbors on multiple occasions to refrain from doing so
• Court users repeatedly yell and fight - often well after sunset – even when asked by neighbors to stop this behavior
• This park is drawing more disrespectful teens from within and outside of the neighborhood
• Behavior of people using this court are not acceptable…not racial or diversity issues here
• Noise
• Kids (middle school and high school age) and adults (probably early 20’s) are always loud and profane (as in mother f******, etc.)
• This is a behavior issue – lack of respect and courtesy to others.
• Kids playing is great!  Kids roughhousing is normal.  Foul language is not OK.  Where are the parents?
• Bad behavior hasn’t changed even after repeated attempts to engage the court users
• The main users of this court display bad behavior.  This court is barely used by anyone else.
• Have personally seen boys urinating out in the open
• This court is no longer a nuisance. It’s a serious neighborhood problem 

Siting/Location Issues:

• Basketball court is located too close to neighborhood homes, irregardless of any other issues
• Quality of life for area residents
• Located in extreme far corner of the park
• Not enjoyable for my wife when gardening in our back yard or sitting on deck in back yard
• Court is located about 10-15 feet from private yards
• Directly affects 6 homes that border the park
• Court is in isolated corner of the park w/ little “eyes/surveillance”
• Difficult to monitor activity in the park from Flad Ave. and Wicklow Way
• There should be a larger buffer between the basketball court and neighboring homes

Enforcement Issues:

• Seemingly lack of tangible enforcement guidelines related to constant profanity and loudness from activity at the basketball court
• City’s reluctance to address issue in District 20
• Decaying park
• Non-enforceable situation…more routine answers than real solutions
• Are they only neighborhood kids?
• Have parents been contacted?
• Who should contact parents?
• Is the Police Dept or Parks Division primarily responsible for enforcement of any noise/profanity/disturbing the peace rules?  Public urination? Trespassing?  Litter?
• Are there noise/profanity/disturbing the peace rules that can be applied to this ongoing situation?
• I want these kids to get the appropriate feedback for their out-of-bounds behavior which I have personally witnessed.  This is mostly for their own good.
• Can Park Rangers help?  How quickly can they respond? This situation occurs mostly on evenings and nights during the week, and at any time during the weekends (e.g., 11:30 – 6 p.m. on Mother’s Day!).
• I am concerned that the city department with jurisdiction can or will resolve the issue quickly and effectively
• Enforcement very difficult without a sustained presence by Parks or Police in this park.
• Is there (or will there be) coordination between Parks and Police on this issue?

Cutting Through Property:

• Repeated trespassing through neighbors’ yards has been a big issue, even after many of these individuals have been asked by neighbors and police officers not to cut through private yards to access the park
• Cutting through yards to short cut to court
• Jumping private fences to get to park
• Opening gates and walking through yards to play on the court
• Many instances of yelling, swearing as basketball court users cut through yards over the past few years

Fear of Problems Spreading:

• Small issues will become big stuff
• Addressing this is critical now as part of “broken window” strategy
• Flad Park issues carry over into other areas
• If this behavior is unchecked it will spread to other parks

Litter:

• Kids leave trash even though the Parks Division has recently placed a barrel there

• Trash can is dumped over a lot

• Kids use trash can to jump up and hang on the rim

• Trash can tipped over and not cleaned up by people using the court

• Trashing the court

• Litter

• Property vandalism

• The trash can has caused more problems than it has solved!

Time of Play

• Kids play into the night as late as 10 p.m.
• Playing late into the evening/night, combined with loudness and profanity
• Is there any way to restrict court hours to 9 a.m. through 7 p.m.?

Safety

• The basketball court users do not change behavior even after repeated attempts to engage them.  They don’t seem to care about the neighbors at all.
• Concerned that greater anger about issue will grow until an event occurs that no one wants to see happen
• Personal safety of residents
• Since these individuals don’t show any respect to the neighbors, will they escalate things and damage property if they know who calls the police?
• Concern about safety for young children/young families using the park
• Concern about good racial relations
• Parks must “feel” safe for all children age groups.
• Retaliation if confronting youths.
• Disrespect of a few patrons threatening the feeling of safety of neighbors in their own homes – may drive them out of the neighborhood?
• Fear of fights.
• Police have been called numerous times, yet the same incidents are occurring at this basketball court. 

A related note from Action Teams coordinator/ORNA board member Scott Harrington:

Thanks again to you all for coming last night and participating in this important discussion.  As a reminder, this will be the key topic at the next crime watch meeting, which will be held at the community center next Wednesday at 6:30.  I'm glad we were able to give this attention it deserves and in a timely fashion, but I promise that we will return to the work of all of the Action Teams next month at our next joint meeting on June 10 at 6:30 at the community center.  In the meantime, please continue to refine your work plans so we can wrap those up and present them to the Board and our residents.

For the Board members who were not there last night, we had a scheduled joint meeting of all of the Action Teams last night but put that aside to  turn our attention to the problems residents in the back of Flad Park are having with some unruly kids (middle school through early 20's) using the basketball court.  Fortunately, this was one of the meetings being facilitated by Bert Stitt who did an excellent job in helping us focus not only on the problems but also on the solutions.  Thuy and a representative of the parks department were there and I think our/Bert's approach was viewed being very helpful and constructive while still allowing folks to express their anger, fear and frustration with the situation.

As a board member and resident, I was thrilled that our association could be there to assist these residents with a very real and difficult problem.  While we still have a long way to go in getting the problem resolved, it was wonderful watching (and being a part of) a group of neighbors who were willing to put their interests aside (again, this was supposed to be a meeting of all Action Teams, not just safety) and direct their full attention to these neighbors in need.  It was truly a thing of beauty.

One final note, the next board meeting will be this Sunday at 6:30 at the community center.

Scott Harrington

271-7603

escotth@sbcglobal.net