Colin O’Keefe, who owns a town home in Crown Hill, said that when he was looking for a home in the neighborhood, there was no need to search for a place with a backyard with Golden Gardens just a few minutes away by bike.
In almost 10 years, the 35-year-old estimates he has visited Golden Gardens more than a hundred times.
Nothing beats watching the sun set late in summer, the colors changing and rays moving each minute behind the Olympic Mountains, he said.
O’Keefe, who is planning his wedding reception at Golden Gardens, said he is disappointed about the decision to limit park hours and thinks spending money for police enforcement is a waste.
“When you lose people like us, who love parks and are the biggest advocates in the world for open space, it kind of feels like you lost the plot,” he said.
It seems like the drag racing issue could be managed by traffic enforcement. And the crowd size issue tells me we need more public spaces, not reduced access to the ones we have.
How can cities manage their most valuable physical resource — land — for the benefit of everyone who chooses to live on it? How is the value created, who reaps the value, and how is it remitted back to the real investors — the community?