Here is a summary of the January, 30, 2013 meeting. I hesitate to call these minutes because I get distracted and forget to write everything down--but its a summary as best as I can recall.
1) Officer Durbin gave an overview of what these meetings are generally about ( I wasn't there for this so I don't know exactly what was said, but when I came in it seemed as though he was just giving a brief overview).
2) Lt. Roberts gave a briefing on the incident that happened at 1:30 pm that day (January 30). Basically it started as a fist fight between two groups of people that had a history of fighting. Some maintenance workers witnessed the fight and went over to try to break it up and two rounds were fired. The thought was that they were just used to scare the other group, but the concern was that they were in the direction of the houses. 5 of the people were in custody as of the afternoon of January 30. A couple of them live in the area. There were surface wounds on at least 3 of them from a knife, but nothing serious. No gunshot wounds. Lt. Roberts wasn't able to say if this was gang related. All individuals involved were between 18-21. (A more detailed account has since been published in the daily sun). The Flag PD arrived very quickly on the scene.
3) I asked if there was any more information on the recently reported assault on a woman in the park and the officers responded that there was no new information than what had been reported in the paper.
4) Officer Durbin talked about the Bushmaster Park City Workgroup that was started by the City Manager last fall (on which he serves). They have a bond leftover from 1998 worth 1.9 million that they want to use on parks. They are not sure what exactly they will do, but they are interested in potentially doing something with the east (undeveloped) side of Bushmaster. He gave a brief overview of the Hermosa Vida project which has been looking at how people use parks and the perceptions of safety in the park. There is also someone from the Sustainability division of the city who is doing a thesis relating parks and crime (or something like that). The city would like to develop the east side. Right now the thought is a community garden. Several audience members discussed the fact that there is not enough sun for a garden and that trees would need to be cut down. The other issue is parking something was mentioned about parking off of Mt. Elden (south side of the park). At the next meeting on February 20, folks from the city will be there to take comments regarding park development. There will likely be more public forums in April.
5) Residents expressed their thoughts that more events should occur at Bushmaster. Parking has always been the response in the past. They hesitate to sponsor more events because of limited parking. An idea was put forth to organize an event --maybe a fundraiser for another group -- that would bring people to the park.
6) One resident pointed out that she had a hard time reserving space in the park for kid-related activities, but yet it was so easy for folks to obtain a permit to drink in the park. She thought parks and rec should maybe save some spots for more family-oriented activities.
7) One resident mentioned organizing a winter event in the park like a snowboarding thing like the Dew Downtown.
8) A representative of the Flagstaff Leadership Program mentioned that this year's class had adopted Bushmaster as their project. No information on what that entails.
9) A few residents began to organize a meeting at the dog park after a discussion of how it was always empty.
10) Private conversations with ideas of how to encourage park use continued after the meeting ended.
No comments:
Post a Comment