How much do you love your park?
Maybe enough to organize or participate in a cleanup, raise or donate money to make an improvement, or lead an educational walk. Or maybe you don’t have the time or money to donate, but simply find your local park to be a refuge — and appreciate the work other people are doing to keep it that way.
But no matter how deep your affection goes for your favorite park, it’s unlikely you’d want to get sued for it.
That, unfortunately, is the fork in the road that the people behind the Friends of Pennypack Park confronted in 2020. In early 2021, Bernard Brown reported on how their organization — which conducted park cleanups and educational walks — was forced to disband because, despite having no connection to two tragic deaths that occurred at Pennypack, the group was named in lawsuits.
Kyle Bagenstose returns to that topic this month, but only to say that nothing has been done yet to protect groups like this. And they are afraid.
There have been efforts at the state level to create legislation that would protect Friends groups. Despite broad support, the legislation was never called up for a vote. It could eventually pass, but there is no timeline and no guarantee.
Which makes it hard not to look at the City’s role in all of this.
For decades, our parks have been underfunded. That means much of the responsibility for maintaining them has shifted to citizens. As Temple sociologist Kevin Loughran has written, that can create an inequity: Neighborhoods with wealth and social capital are better positioned to organize Friends groups, raise money and preserve their outdoor spaces, while communities that have historically received less investment in their parks don’t have the same access to those private resources.
In an interview with Grid in June of 2022, Loughran asked a simple question: “Why can’t we just give more money to the Parks department and have them make the park as nice as we want it to be?”
But that’s not the path the City has chosen. By failing to provide adequate funding, it has effectively outsourced the work to these citizen-run organizations.
And that’s what makes this situation particularly galling. When the very organizations that are picking up the slack are threatened with lawsuits, the City isn’t protecting them.
Why can’t the City provide these vulnerable organizations with insurance?
As Parks Commissioner Susan Slawson says in this issue, “They are an essential partner to what we do in all our parks. They should absolutely be protected.”
So Philadelphia, let’s protect them.
