This morning at Fort Ward Park a grounds maintenance company, working for the Oakland Baptist Church, continued to removed leaves from the grave yard which is surrounded on three-sides by the city park. Unfortunately the private contractor parked their vehicle on the publicly-owned "Old Grave Yard" while they carried and blew the leaves they removed from the cemetery into the nearby stream channel.
Fort Ward Park has long been a challenge for City of Alexandria officials because it is a National Historic Register Site and a popular destination for dog-walkers, picnickers, walkers and nature lovers. It is also where numerous family graves are located within the public park and the private cemetery. Fort Ward also helps the city managers and private property owners in their continuing efforts to manage water runoff. City officials have spent great amounts of money to find graves, manage recreation use, protect nature, control water runoff and be a good neighbor to those who live adjacent to the park.
City officials have an interior-focused coordination committee, a friends group and a citizen-based monitoring committee to integrate the diverse values, uses and functions of the park. Unfortunately on a day when many city managers aren't at work, and those that are seem only focused on their tasks-at-hand, good park management at Fort Ward seems to be back-sliding once again.
Driving trucks on graves and dumping into stream channels have repeatedly been problems that public and private leaders have worked on. Today is a reminder that their work is far from done.
J. Glenn Eugster
Fort Ward Observer
April 10, 2017
Fort Ward Observer
April 10, 2017
