Fort Ward Park and Museum Advisory Group Meeting of August 14, 2014 J. Glenn Eugster Fort Ward Observer

Fort Ward Park and Museum Advisory Group Meeting of August 14, 2014

J. Glenn Eugster

Fort Ward Observer

Last night’s meeting of the Fort Ward Park and Museum Advisory Group ended with the members voting on whether to approve the Fort Ward Park and Museum Final Draft Management Plan and send it up the review gauntlet before it reaches the Alexandria City Council for review and action.  The document will go out for another public review, and for more review by other city advisory commissions in September and is expected to come to Council in October.

The gathering last night was at times lawless, chaotic, and combative as well as informative.  Before the meeting started there was a brief exchange between an attendee and the Chair of the group Chuck Ziegler.  Before the meeting Mr. Ziegler was clear to the members that they would vote on the plan on August 13, 2014 and if they couldn’t attend they could vote by proxy.  When it was brought to his attention that a proxy vote would be illegal Mr. Ziegler said he would use one if he didn’t get a quorum.   Fortunately nine members of the 13 member advisory group attended.

The advisory group meetings are notorious for debates, insults and paternal and maternal speeches and last night’s dialogue was no different.  The meetings are typically loosely run with little order and guided in part by the chair and in part by the advisory groups liaison Laura Durham of the Recreation Department. 

The meeting began with Mr. Ziegler proclaiming that this was the last meeting of the advisory group despite the fact that the members had not had a meeting to discuss all of the new versions of the final draft management plan.  Chuck intent from the start seemed obvious.  He wanted to wrap-up this effort which was more than two-years overdue.

After the group approved minutes from the last meeting Mr. Zieger opened the meeting for “Public Comment”.  Alexandria’s approach to public comment, in bodies such as this one as well as in City Council Meeting, is to let the public say something and then critique and, or, debate with the person making the comment.  Last night the number of consultants and city staff far out numbered the public and concerns expressed about the need to find the remaining family graves and burial areas in the park were verbally battered with the wisdom of those controlling the reports recommendations.  As with many meetings city staff doesn’t use the public comment period to listen to what the public thinks or knows but rather to defend their own conclusions be they right or wrong.

A strong undercurrent was present from the start of the meeting that involved the different attitudes between the public, the advisory group members and the city leaders about the importance of family graves and burial areas within the park.  One would think that after seven years of focused discussed the exchange of ideas would be getting closer to yes. However, much of the debate that went on had to do with finding the remaining graves before park development occurs.  Descendant family members of the Fort Ward African American community jousted with recreation and Civil War advocates about whether the plans “safeguards” would insure that more graves wouldn’t be destroyed.  Advisory group member Adrienne Terrell Washington, President of the Fort Ward and Seminary African American Descendants Society, Inc. said, “ There is no guarantee that the graves won’t be destroyed.  We have had problems with the process that has been going on.  We are told one thing and something else is done. The guidance (city action) isn’t spelled out.  We don’t trust the city to consult with the descendants before it takes action”.

As a result of the exchange about whether the city could be trust to protect graves, a proposal was made and agreed to informally that advisory group members and city staff would develop a written administrative process to outline steps that would be taken before any ground-disturbing activities.  This process would be incorporated into an existing Memo of Understanding between the city departments that are involved in the management, use and protection of Fort Ward Park.

Interestingly most of the distrust is aimed at city leaders in the Office of Historic Alexandria.  Director Lance Mallamo and the new City Archaeologist Frances Bromberg more often than not seem to be more supportive of balancing values than they l are
of historic and cultural preservation.  Ms. Bromberg was quoted several times about statements she made in the past about fill within the park maintenance yard and the likely location of more graves where the city want to construct a earth mound to deflect water runoff.  Both Ms. Bromberg and Mr. Mallamo have made statement over the last five years that they either deny or claim that people have misunderstood.

Despite his position Mr. Mallamo has been consistently reluctant to work with the African American community to preserve,  protect, interpret and enjoy cultural, archaeological and historic places, artifacts and buildings.  More often than not, when people come to the Office of Historic Alexandria for assist to help save a schoolhouse, protect and cemetery, find lost graves in a park, or tap the wealth of expertise of residents through oral histories, Mr. Mallamo either side-steps the requests or helps ever so reluctantly repeatedly telling people, “I have no money to do that”.

Part of the meeting agenda also focused on the other parts of the management plan heading to Council.  One consultant report is the Drainage Master Plan which outlines questionable solutions to solving the water runoff coming from the park’s maintenance yard into the Oakland Baptist Church Cemetery.  Another consultant report is one that documents the history of the Fort Ward African American community that lived on land that is now the park.  Some of the members had not known that these documents were revised and made available for review on the Recreation Department’s website and each document sparked comments, debate and rationalization of the city’s actions.  The failure to notify the descendant families about the revised document was especially sensitive since the contract and most of work on this report was done by a consultant without input from the families she was researching.

As the meeting moved toward the vote to approve or reject the management plan protocol, as well “Roberts-Rules-of-Order”, were tossed to the wind.   A verbal rather than written resolution was quickly shared with the members and brought to a vote.  Not surprising, given the discussions of the evening, the vote was split with six members voting to approve the plan and three voting against it.  One member, Francis Colbert Terrell, who didn’t receive all of the review documents from the city, said, “I can’t support something I didn’t read”.

The members who voted against the report, representing the Oakland Baptist Church, Seminary Civic Association, and the Fort Ward and Seminary African American Descendants Society, Inc. indicated their desire to prepare and attach a minority report to the plan that explains why they did not support the management plan.

A brief discussion followed about next steps.  Laura Durham emphasized that “All comments on the approved draft management plan will go to Council but won’t amend the document going forward tonight”.

The meeting was adjourned by Mr. Ziegler.