Remarks on the Proposed Fort Ward Park and Museum Management Plan by Joseph Glenn Eugster

January 24, 2015

I am Joseph Glenn Eugster of 4022 Ellicott St. Alexandria, VA.  Thank you for your interest and support in Fort Ward Historic Park.  I’m to ask you for your help with your most recent financial investment--the proposed Management Plan for Fort Ward Park and Museum.  

Make no mistake, everyone involved with the park and this effort believes that Fort Ward is one of the City of Alexandria’s assets.  Everyone believes that the activities that currently take place in the park should continue.  No one is proposing to eliminate any current use of the park.    However, considerable concern exists about what future development might be proposed by the Recreation and the Transportation Departments.

I understand you have the option to act, or not act, to approve the plan that was presented to you recently.  The plan has several serious flaws that need to be quickly fixed before you act on it.  

Please take a pathway that gives the plan a chance of succeeding so that the wounds created by past mistakes can be healed, divisions between public servants and the communities they serve can be removed, and we can as citizens of one city begin to implement this plan.

The key parts of the plan that need to be repaired are:  

1. Complete research on locating the bodies of those buried within the park. The map that will be used to guide ground disturbing activities is seriously flawed.  It does not include spatial information on the graves that were identified by the City in the 1990’s through oral history interviews; it does not include spatial information on graves from any new oral history interviews; and it does not include information  from correspondence  between and with city officials on graves in the park.  Information from oral histories and fact-finding from city files and records must be included before the ground disturbance map is complete.    

2.  Redesign two of the  storm water projects within the park.   The ravine and Oakland Baptist Church Cemetery projects are proposed within cemeteries and, or know burial areas.  The proposals developed by the city and your consultant were not guided by accurate research information.  They also did not include input from the descendants of the Fort Ward African American community and the Oakland Baptist Church.  City staff working collaboratively with these groups should develop alternatives that will manage park runoff and protect important historic and cultural values.   

3.  Future decision-making relies on an “iterative process” for proposing development and then checking for archaeology.  Past actions, especially within and around the maintenance yard, have proven that the iterative approach doesn’t work.  Forcing or trying to fit projects into sacred and sensitive areas is a formula for more conflict between communities and the city.  The “protocol for ground-disturbing activities” was developed by OHA managers unilaterally.  The intent of the advisory group was to have the President of the Descendants Society work with the Fort Ward Historic Park liaison to develop procedures that make sense and everyone can agree on.  That did not happen and it needs to.  These tasks can be completed within 4 to 6 months provided that there is some urgency to do this work.  

Please do not approve the plan today but rather request the City Manager and department heads, in direct cooperation with the descendant of the Fort Ward community, to fix these flaws in the plan and re-present it to you.  Such action will demonstrate the city’s commitment to the park and the communities it serves.

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