March 10, 2009
Dear Ms. Durham,
This letter is in reply to the City’s Feb. 9, 2009 request for input on the current facilities and operations at Fort Ward Park. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in the two City-sponsored community meetings and provide written comments. This dialogue is an important way to engage residents in the long-standing traditions of historic preservation, heritage tourism, education and recreational enjoyment in Alexandria.
Summary Recommendations
We recommend that the City of Alexandria take the following actions for Fort Ward Park.
1. Reaffirm the City’s 1982 commitment, to the Commonwealth of Virginia and the National Park Service as part of the National Register of Historic Places designation, to operate Fort Ward Park as a Historical Park with recreation activities and plantings that are consistent with the historic nature of this park, and indicative of the City‘s total commitment to the preservation of the site. We urge you to keep the focus on history at Fort Ward Park.
2. Limit all future special events to those uses considered within the historic nature of this park. Uses, however, that draw large crowds and have no particular tie to he historic nature of the park can and should be placed in other Alexandria parks which do not have such a historic designation. Such parks as Ben Brenman, Chinquapin and Oronoco Bay, and Northern Virginia Park Authority areas may be more appropriate for large crowds.
3. Postpone all of the proposed new picnic pavilions, restrooms, trails, and parking facilities for Fort Ward Park, in the City’s October 16, 2008 Facility Study & Recommendations, until park historic and archeological sites are survey and a master plan is developed for their protection and use. A plan, as well as Special Use Permits, will ensure that new uses will be located appropriately and new park facilities will not destroy historic sites and have to be redone.
4. Use the funds that are proposed for new facilities and parking areas for park-wide historic and archeological surveys, staff for the improved management of park users during peak periods, and park master planning.
5. Prohibit alcohol and amplified music within Fort Ward Park. Allow amplified music for City-sponsored concerts at the amphitheater provided they are consistent with the City’s Noise Ordinance.
6. Re-locate those portions of the City’s Nursery and Maintenance Yard activities that are currently located on top of, or adjacent to, African-American grave sites.
7. Begin working now with the City Office of Archeology to better understand the pre-and post-Civil War periods with the goal of broader interpretation for the expected sesquicentennial crowds at Fort Ward park in 2011.
8. Empower the Friends of Fort Ward Park, or another qualified private non-profit organization, to help secure public and private money and in-kind services, through donations, grants, and revenue generation techniques, to supplement funds provided annually by the City for Fort Ward Park Museum and the entire park.
9. Establish a single and easily accessible point of contact for regular communication, collaboration and information between the Fort Ward Park managers and the public they serve.
Background
Our comments are intended to provide City staff, as well as local elected officials, with ideas and suggestions which will help define and guide improvements at Fort Ward Park. These comments reflect our interests and concerns, as well as the conversations we have had over the last eighteen months with a broad range of interests including the: residents of Marlboro Estates; former residents of the property before the City took ownership of the park; managers and staff of the City’s Parks, Recreation & Cultural Affairs, Police Department, Office of Archeology, Parks & Recreation Commission; he leaders of the West End Business Association, Friends of Fort Ward Park Board, Seminary Hill Association Board, National Trust for Historic Preservation, Fort Ward Museum & Historic Site, Coalition for Smarter Growth, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, National Alliance of Faith & Justice, National Park Service, and Oakland Baptist Church.
These concerns were shared at both public meetings on Fort Ward Park and included comments from meeting participants who have family members alive today that actually lived on Fort property before the City acquired it for the park.
Many residents and group leaders are deeply concerned about the City’s ongoing management of the park, its historic sites and park users. City actions within the park have been taken without Special Use Permits or opportunity for public review and comment. These actions have intensified the use of the park for a solid waste transfer station; large unmanaged special events with alcohol and excessively loud amplified music; and a park district maintenance operation. The current nursery and maintenance area has been developed on top of the graves of former residents of the park area.
The City’s actions particularly over the last several years have destroyed and neglected historic African-American cultural values, neglected arboretum tree and shrub plantings, hindered the use of the park by visitors, and had an adverse impact on the quality of life of adjacent homeowners.
Residents and group leaders are concerned about the City’s current proposal for the major expansion of picnic pavilions, parking areas, restrooms, and trails, dated October 16, 2008. The Facility Study & Recommendations for Fort Ward Park was developed and posted on the City’s website without public input or review. The document does not respond to concerns made by the public over the last eighteen months nor does it include a plan for the entire park. For example, specific recreational facilities are proposed to be located in areas of the park where freed African-American slaves lived, and many are buried, following the Emancipation Proclamation and the military occupation of the area.
It unilaterally modifies the documented historic and cultural values of the park that eventually justified it being designated to the National Park Service’s National Register of Historic Places.
We understand, based on discussions with Commonwealth Historic Preservation Office, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers, that the City’s past and proposed actions at Fort Ward Park will jeopardize the 1982 designation of Fort Ward Park on the National Register of Historic Places. Surely losing this designation will hurt tourism efforts and reflect poorly on the City’s reputation as one of the premier areas for historic preservation in the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Despite the ongoing concerns of the public about the existing management of the park the City’s proposed plan calls for increasing the size of parking areas, adding new restrooms, building a new trail, adding new picnic pavilions closer to adjacent homeowners, and expanding park and picnic areas within an area that has been identified by the City as significant because of its African-American history.
These actions are proposed at a time when Roger Blakeley of the Recreation, Parks & Cultural Activities Department told attendees at the March 4, 2009 Fort Ward Community Meeting that due to proposed City budget cuts “Some of the [user management] things we tried to do last year we might not be able to do today“. With budget cuts looming, and cutbacks in staff and user management services predicted, the idea that the City would develop more facilities and encourage more recreation users is misguided and will make existing problems worse. If anything, the City should improve and expand Fort Ward Park Museum and improve the park grounds and visitor experience and tell the story of pre-and post-Civil War periods.
As the City and Commonwealth are now planning for the sesquicentennial celebration of the Civil War in 2011. It is a time when the recognition, protection, management, use and interpretation of Fort Ward Park will serve to foster community pride in Alexandria’s history, and enhance cultural-based tourism. Appropriate action now will inspire the citizenry to protect and enjoy our past so that we might sustain our City‘s future.
Thank you for your interest in our comments. We look forward to the City’s draft action plan on March 18, 2009.
Sincerely,
J. Glenn Eugster & Deborah A. Weatherly
4022 Ellicott Street
Alexandria, VA 22304
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