November 2012 - Parks & Recreation - 19

BRIEFLY NOTED
Detroit's
Belle Isle Park

ALLEN CHARTIER

■ AS THE FIRST STEP in a long-term
initiative to overhaul Chicago's broadband infrastructure and bring free,
ultra-high-speed broadband internet
access to all of Chicago's public spaces,
Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced in
late September that downtown Millennium Park has begun offering free wi-ﬁ
as part of a partnership with SilverIP, an
ultra-high-speed internet service provider. The initiative, dubbed the Chicago Broadband Challenge, also plans
to provide gigabit-class ﬁber internet to
areas of the city with a heavy emphasis on industry, higher education, and
entrepreneurial startups.
■ IN PHILADELPHIA'S POINT BREEZE
neighborhood, city officials are threatening legal action against a café owner
who spent $20,000 of his own money
cleaning up a trash-ﬁlled city-owned
lot adjacent to his business and turning
it into a park for the public. Ori Feibush
estimates he removed 40 tons of trash
and brush from the lot before adding
picnic tables, trees, fencing, and more,
but the property owner, Philadelphia
Redevelopment Authority, contends he
had no right to trespass and transform
the site without their permission. To
reduce their liability against accidents
or incidents on the site, PRA will likely
require Feibush to vacate the lot so it
can be closed off to the public.
■ IN LATE SEPTEMBER, California Governor Jerry Brown signed several bills to
keep California's state parks open and
ensure greater spending oversight in
the wake of a scandal in which $54 million in park funds were hidden in two
special funds for more than a decade,
even as dozens of parks were threatened with closure. Two bills, AB1478
and AB1589, establish a two-year moratorium on park closures, provide about
$30 million in funding, and give the
state's 278 parks new fundraising tools.

The state's Department of Parks and
Recreation director resigned and a senior parks official was terminated this
summer following the scandal. To help
prevent similar problems from happening in the future, the new laws also give
a state commission more authority to
oversee the Department of Parks and
Recreation.
■ DETROIT'S BELLE ISLE PARK is one of
the city's jewels, but because the cashstrapped city cannot afford to operate
the park, Mayor Dave Bing and Governor Rick Snyder have proposed that it
be leased and turned over to the state
parks system. However, city council
members have expressed resistance
to the proposal, voicing concerns over
ambiguities in the proposed lease
(which could span anywhere from 30
to 90 years) and the source of funding
for much-needed repairs and maintenance. Leasing the park to the state
would save Detroit more than $6 million annually. Discussions are ongoing.
■ THE JOURNAL of Park and Recreation
Administration recently published " The
Relationship of Household Proximity to Park Use, " which examines the
incidence of members of a household
using a local park depending on how
far away it is from the home. Data were
collected from an effective sample of
458 city respondents in Texas, and the

study conﬁrmed that respondents living within .75 miles of a park were signiﬁcantly more likely to use parks than
those residing beyond that distance.
The subjective measure yielded the
highest probability of use and showed
that respondents who perceived they
had the ability to access a park on foot
or by bicycle were nine percent more
likely to use parks.
■ IN COOK COUNTY, ILLINOIS, a
judge has ruled the arrests of 92 Occupy Chicago demonstrators unconstitutional and also declared that the
city's overnight park curfew violates
the First Amendment. On two consecutive weekends in October 2011, protestors violated the city park's 11 p.m.
curfew, which spurred more than 300
arrests. The group says this indicates
selective enforcement of the law, as no
arrests were made at the 2008 election night rally for Barack Obama that
drew 500,000 people to the park. Noting the park's long history of political
rallies going back to Abraham Lincoln,
Associate Judge Thomas M. Donnelly
quoted early city leaders who resolved
in 1835 that the land that would become Grant Park " should be reserved
for all time to come for a public square,
accessible at all times to the people. "
City lawyers plan to appeal and do not
think the judge's ruling affects the

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November 2012 - Parks & Recreation

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