I thought the Johnson Road Park PACT Playground was a dead issue, since it was torn down and replaced over a year ago. I certainly did not think it would be made a campaign issue. But I was wrong.
In a letter to the editor (“Pure Fiction,” The Keller Citizen, March 23), a writer listed a number of charges alleged to have been made that she considers false. One of them was “that Johnson Road Park supposedly had been mismanaged.” Her one-word response to that charge was “fiction.”
The proper response to her letter requires more than one word. On January 15, 2005, The Fort Worth Star-Telegram quoted Mayor Julie Tandy as saying with respect to the Johnson Road playground:
“There is no indication of any imminent danger, but out of an abundance of caution, we’ve decided to close it.”
She said this even though the article described 22 top-priority hazards considered life-threatening or capable of causing severe or permanent disabilities. These hazards had been identified in a Maintenance/Safety Inspection Report prepared by the park’s manufacturer, dated December 17, 2004, a month earlier.
While the mayor’s statement seems inconsistent with the facts in the report, it could have been simply a matter of “putting the best face on a bad situation,” and the fact that the park was closed a month after receiving the report could be chalked up to bureaucratic pacing. But there are additional facts of which the Star-Telegram, and perhaps the mayor herself, were apparently unaware.
James A. Peterson, professor emeritus in the Department of Recreation and Park Administration, Indiana University, is quoted from the April 2002 issue of Parks and Recreation, reprinted on the National Recreation and Parks Website as saying:
“79% of all playground accidents are due to falls. Most of these, 68%, are due to falls to the surface and 10% are from falls to the equipment.”
The City of Keller follows the Consumer Product Safety Commission Guidelines for playground safety that are recognized by the State of Texas. In order to meet these standards, the city employs a National Playground Safety Institute Certified Inspector.
This inspector filed regular reports on the condition of the playground, and those reports are public records. The following are excerpts from some of these reports. The excerpts cover only the most critical of the possible hazards on a playground, the “fall safety surfacing,” which in the case of the Johnson Road Park Playground, was pea gravel. Proper maintenance required that the pea gravel be tilled on a frequent basis to prevent clumping, in order for it to maintain its cushioning effect.
April 25, 2003: “Pee (sic) gravel still a problem in fall zones.”
August 22, 2003: “As always the pea gravel is a concern.”
November 3, 2003: The fall cushion is rated a 2 (imminent hazard requiring immediate action)
July 1, 2004: “In many areas the fall safety surface has turned to concrete.”
The July 1, 2004 report’s summary explains that the safety surface pea gravel has over time mixed with sand and other materials to form a concrete-like surface, says that regular maintenance can no longer prevent this, and recommends that the playground be shut down and fenced off. This was six and one-half months before the playground was closed, the mayor declared it free of any “indication of imminent danger,” and it was being closed “out of an abundance of caution.”
Before the playground was finally closed, the fall surface was rated a Priority one (life threatening/severe or permanent disability) by the manufacturer in its report.
These reports indicate to me that the playground had been inspected extremely well. I don’t think it was maintained well at all, if you judge the effectiveness of maintenance by results, rather than excuses.
I don’t fault the park employees for this. I’ve seen them work, and they are skilled, hard working people. The most feasible explanation to me is that the maintenance was not performed frequently enough, and that is a management issue, which brings us full circle to the March 23 letter in The Keller Citizen.
I think it was also a money issue. I think if the proper money had been allocated for maintenance, that playground would have lasted its full expected lifespan of twenty years.
Even the manufacturer’s report said that with repairs far less expensive than the cost of a new playground – and proper maintenance – the playground would have lasted another five years or more.
The playground is gone, a new, and safer one is in its place, and the issue should have been closed at that. But it was a mistake to use the management of this playground as a political prop for this mayor and this city manager.
I don’t know if Mayor Tandy was aware of this situation in January 2005. I hope not, because it would be unconscionable to tell us there was no real problem, when the city had known unsuspecting parents were placing their own children’s lives at risk of death or serious injury for at least 6-1/2 months without doing anything about it.
But if she didn’t know about it, that in itself is a management issue. And if the city manager didn’t know about it, there’s yet another critical management issue.
Somewhere along the line the system broke down, and only the mayor and/or the city manager can tell us where.
And that’s the truth, not fiction.
