Chicken Yard Park in Starr Hill is nearly 100 years old. My grandfather played in it. It was the neighborhood itself that put in the playground, and then later gave it to the city. People have been driving through it for as long as the house next door has been there and, to my knowledge, there has never been an accident.
I’m fairly knowledgeable, too. My grandparents, Jay and Judy Crondahl, lived in that house for 40 years, and as a very small child I also lived on Starr Hill. I practically grew up in the Chicken Yard, playing in it and being driven through it. Everyone is aware of what is happening, everyone is careful — the drivers, the children, and anyone with the children.
The “speed limit” there is as slow as the car will physically go. I was far more at risk walking to the playground than being in it. I myself was more of a risk to other children while riding a bike there. Children are not stupid, and the idea that a child can be taught to watch out for traffic on the street but nowhere else is insulting to their intelligence and ludicrous. If anything, it’s beneficial to teach children that cars can be anywhere, and not just the street.
People have been driving through the Chicken Yard for decades. According to the article in the Empire, Parks and Recreation Director George Schaaf had had his job for two months when he suddenly decided to make it an issue. One of these things has been working, so to speak, for a lot longer than the other. The article also says that he showed a video of a girl playing in the Chicken Yard while repaving was done. That is blatant emotional manipulation that should have no place in determining public policy.
The Parks and Rec department has already replaced the Cope Park playground with a tennis court I have never seen anybody use, and turned the old location of the court into extra parking I have never seen anybody need. If the Chicken Yard goes, then the only public playground left in downtown Juneau will the be the Capital School playground. How long before someone decides that that one needs to go too? How long before the children in downtown Juneau have nowhere left to play?
This doesn’t need to be another Project Playground, with architects and design plans and all that. Replace the equipment where it stands if you must, but anything more is unnecessary and a waste of taxpayers’ money. If a perceived “safety issue” has been there for well over 70 years and never actually resulted in anything, it can’t actually be that much of an issue, can it?
• Katherine Wilson is a Juneau resident. My Turns and Letters to the Editor represent the view of the author, not the view of the Juneau Empire.
