What Next for Sidney Marcus Park?

The dishwasher still doesn't work, but we have a new internet service provider, which so far seems to have kept us mostly connected - but in the meantime, I have not written about so many things that otherwise I would have told you about. There was the follow up on the Head Lice Committee, for example (short version: APS said "no") and tweaking of the new zoning plan for Morningside Elementary School. But there are no action items with either one of those, so let's go straight to the topic at hand.

We all know it has been the season of Major Public Policy Debates, and while the national discussion has been focused on the economic meltdown and the recent election, here in the neighborhood there has been another question under discussion, and that of course would be the fate of the sand box at Sidney Marcus Park. Our neighborhood association, the Morningside-Lenox Park Association, hosted a discussion about this at the monthly MLPA meeting in October. I wasn't there, but the head of the new Sand Box Committee (I do hope they have a T-shirt) has written a nice summary of the issues and posted it to the MLPA listserv.

When the new playground was installed at Sidney Marcus Park a few years ago, it included a new rubber play surface. This surface is expensive, even though the raw material - shredded tires, as far as I know - is not. The original sand box was directly adjacent to the playground, and I remember the sand overflowing onto that rubber surface and that people expressed concerns then that the sand would damage the play surface. That sand box got converted to a planter early on and a new one was built a little farther away on the other side of the walkway.

Even though it's farther away, the sand still does not totally stay confined to the enclosure, and still ends up on the rubber surface and in the drain that is important to maintaining proper drainage. If the drain gets clogged up, the rubber surface is at risk, too, so the sand box has to go. But it really is the only thing at the playground for younger children, so the decision was to come up with a plan for something that can be added to Sidney Marcus Park for the toddler set. Natasha Moffitt (nmoffitt@kslaw.com) has volunteered to chair the Sand Box Committee, and she is looking for help with this task. So if you can help, let her know. The timeframe is short - a plan is needed by December - and the ultimate decision will the the city's, but if this is something you care about, consider volunteering. There also will need to be some money raised, no doubt, and if you don't want to be on the committee but you could help with that, I am sure she would like to hear from you, too.

I don't know if it came up in the deliberations or not, but for years I have wondered why - in our highly educated, parents-with-Ph.D.'s-and-other-doctoral-degrees neighborhood - we had an outdoor sand box at all. From a cat's point of view, this is, well, a sand box, and that means we have to assume that cats are using it for the purpose that cats use sand boxes. One has to assume that it is contaminated with cat feces, which means some risk of toxoplasmosis (see the CDC fact sheet on toxoplasmosis for the details: http://www.cdc.gov/toxoplasmosis/prevent.html). If the point is a safe place for toddlers to play, I would suggest avoiding the litter box motif.

Years ago a co-worker who lives in one of those outside-the-Perimeter counties found herself in John Howell Park and told me later how lucky I am to be in a neighborhood where there are parks. And we are. We have wonderful parks for picnics and neighborhood events and play and walking the dog and making new friends and meeting our neighbors. We are very lucky.

And besides volunteering to for the committee, there is another way we can all help. According to the sand box email, there's a clean up at Sidney Marcus Park this afternoon, from 3-6 p.m. Neighbors bearing rakes, shovels, and leaf blowers are especially welcome. And I don't know for a fact that it kills toxo, but if you decide to have a picnic afterwards, well, I'd bring some hand sanitizer.