Concerned parent Janae Roithmayr wants to make Santa Rita Park safer, especially for some of the smallest visitors.
She is circulating a petition for an unobtrusive fence around the play area and a guard rail between the park and U.S. Highway 550/160.
As of Saturday, she had collected about 275 signatures in person and through a Change.org petition.
“The parents are very receptive and very grateful and report they have oftentimes wondered why it hasn’t been done,” she said. Toddlers could easily wander into the roads or into the Animas River. She is also concerned a vehicle might lose control and crash into the park.
Roithmayr and her husband initially had concerns while taking their daughter, Evyn, to Santa Rita Park, when she was a little over a year old. After their son, Gavin, was born, their concerns increased.
Although she hasn’t had any close calls, Evyn is now 4 and Gavin is 2, and they are very quick, she said.
“We only visit the park when there are two adults present, one to closely watch each of our precious children,” she wrote in an email.
Other parents she has spoken with have had close calls, she said.
She approached the city Parks and Recreation Department about putting in fences while the park was under construction in April 2016.
She received a formal letter from Cathy Metz, director of Parks and Rec, in response to her request. The letter talked about the berm put in to separate the park from the highway and it explained that there have not been any major accidents.
“Many years ago, a berm was constructed in Santa Rita Park between the playground area and the highway, along with vegetation, as a visual barrier. This berm was constructed to deter children in the park from wandering towards the highway,” Metz wrote.
After hearing from Roithmayr, Metz took her request to the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board. The board considered a $17,000 chainlink fence that would be installed between the highway and the playground area for funding in 2017.
Guard rails are the responsibility of the Colorado Department of Transportation, she said.
The fence was one of many projects the board evaluated for funding in 2017, and while it was not selected, the board will consider it again, Metz said.
“We’re happy to keep it on the list for 2018,” she said.
In general, the city puts up fences around facilities where turf sports take place to keep balls out of the roadway, she said. “The playground hasn’t been a driver historically in the Durango park system to put up a fence,” she said.
For example, Fassbinder Park is surrounded by roads and it doesn’t have a fence.
Roithmayr plans to present her petition to the Durango City Council on May 2.
“I feel very strongly that we should not wait for a tragedy to happen to one of our children before we act,” she wrote in an email.
mshinn@durangoherald.com
