Most Netherwood Park residents oppose playground proposal
Iam writing in response to the editorial that the Albuquerque Journal ran on March 31. I am a 22-year resident of the Netherwood Park neighborhood, and I feel that I am in tune with the neighborhood as well as the Netherwood Park Neighborhood Association (NPNA). As I will outline in detail, your editorial was gross journalistic malfeasance without any investigative effort.
The language that Diane Denish is “not the big cheese she once was” and that “she and other Scroogies” in the neighborhood can supposedly seek our solace by closing our “windows and mumble (ourselves) to sleep” is “fake news” at its worst. Let me set you straight on the facts.
KRQE’s reporter, Jessica Garate, made several points in her investigative story that ran on March 26. One made was that the residents of Netherwood Park were greatly in favor of a proposed playground. That is factually inaccurate.
There are approximately 900 homes in Netherwood Park with a very active NPNA. The proponents of the playground quickly realized that the overwhelming majority of all Netherwood Park residents were opposed to the playground.
The reason the majority of residents in this community oppose a playground is not because we are Scrooges. It has to do with the unique topography of the park.
The park has a flat, high ridge that runs parallel eastwest to Morrow Street and then that high ridge continues north parallel to Princeton Drive. The ridge creates a hill that is approximately 32 to 35 feet high.
The top of the ridge has had multiple uses over generations.
There are fly-fishing classes every Saturday and Sunday; multiple dance classes throughout the warm months; daily sunbathers; multitudes who watch the balloons in the fall; and enormous crowds for any lunar or solar activity.
The bowl created by the hill is on the west side of the park. There are trees on both the west and east sides of the park. These shady areas are used year-round for picnics, family gatherings, including weddings, and in the summer, there is music and food trucks.
The proposed playground was planned to be built in the middle of the bowl. This, of course, would end the multiple soccer teams that practice in the bowl, as well as the YAFL football teams for very young boys who practice there in the fall.
But most significant is “the hill.” It is used year-round by thousands of young people of all ages who use that unique topography to momentarily escape the normal effect of gravity.
On snow days, hundreds of kids are sledding and sliding down the hill. In the summer, the hill is used for water slides.
There are many parks with playground facilities, including Summit Park which is a mere six blocks away. Netherwood Park is unique because of the hill. The proposed playground would turn Netherwood Park into a concrete jungle where there would be no soccer for children, no football for young boys, and the gravity-defying experience of the hill would be a thing of the past.
We aren’t Scrooges …. If the proponents of the playground really think there is community support, let them bring it up with the NPNA. Let’s have a full community vote.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The Bernalillo County Commission considered a resolution Tuesday night fully supporting the construction of a playground at Netherwood Park, following the governor’s line-item veto of $200,000 of funding for the playground.