Signs at Fort Ward

Signs at Fort Ward

If you visit the site of the proposed Freedman’s Memorial Park it is easy to learn about what work is underway.  Professional signs are posted on fences around the area to inform and educate residents and visitors to the proposed preservation site.

If you visited Fort Ward Park over the last three years occasionally you might find an 8 X 11” sheet of paper describing what archaeological research is underway.  The maintenance yard, where more graves are located, is locked-down and the only posted information is to “Keep Out”.  Staff in the Fort Ward Park Museum, or park maintenance workers, are always helpful if you seek them out and ask them about what is going on at Fort Ward.  However, the Museum has had cut-backs and is not always open.  Park maintenance workers are spread thin caring for a number of recreation areas in this district.

Many believe that you cannot not communicate.  Sometimes what you don’t or won’t say about what is going on speaks volumes about how you feel.  The Fort Ward Park effort has been undertaken with considerable resistance from the City of Alexandria department heads responsible for managing this area.  Some of that might be because they can’t do everything that needs to be done as quickly as it needs to be done.  In other cases they explain that they “don’t do historical parks”, “don’t have funding” , “don’t believe certain tasks are needed”, or that certain concerns aren’t concerns.

In many situations communication suffers when public servants are very busy.  Some city employees treat the communities that they serve as “the front” and view involving the public in decision-making as unnecessary, at best, and hostile at worst.  Fort Ward has clearly been one of the examples of how neglecting communication can make city services far more complicated, time consuming and expensive.   Although city leaders have taken steps to improve civic engagement more often than not it is business as usual at Fort Ward--which is a topic for another day.

As is the case with the Freedman’s area the city is getting outside public and private funds from others to undertake work at Fort Ward.  Professionally made signs which describe the work underway at Fort Ward would not only help keep citizens informed it would also be a good way to tell others about the support the city is receiving from other organizations.  City Council, the National Park Service, the National Trust for HIstoric Preservation, and others have made contributions that need to be publicly acknowledged.

Fort Ward Park has other signs sharing all kinds of information.  Not one sign acknowledges that the entire area is listed on the National Register of HIstoric Places.  Not one sign gives park users information about the work underway and why it is being done.  Perhaps omission of these signs is due to tight budgets. Or perhaps it is a sign of something else.  Either way, what we have here is a failure to communicate.