Park Power

EVERETT - You could say parks and playgrounds may have a P.R. problem. Turn on the evening news and you're pretty much guaranteed to see a story about firefighters dousing a four-alarm blaze or police officers busting some bad guys.

But a story about a gardener completing the spring planting, a work crew clearing brush or a maintenance worker fixing a swing set? Even on the slowest of news days, not likely. The problem for parks and playgrounds is that they're just there, quietly, even anonymously doing what they do. But that doesn't mean they don't provide as much value, aren't as fundamentally important to the life of the community you call home as your fire and police departments.

Don't believe us? Then get up and take a quick walk to your nearest neighborhood park. A park like the 15-acre Senator Henry M. Jackson Park in the Delta neighborhood of Everett, Washington, a city of just over 100,000 on the shores of the Puget Sound, a few miles north of Seattle.

It's just re-opened following a $2.5 million renovation funded by the Washington Department of Parks and Recreation, the Washington Department of Commerce and HUD Community Development Block Grant funds from the City.

"We love it," Mariah Redhage, the mother of a 4-year-old daughter and lives in an apartment building nearby told The Everett Herald's (www.heraldnet.com/) Julie Muhlstein who paid a visit for a sneak peek just before the grand opening.

There's lots to love about the park. It's got a climbing net and a zip line. A new basketball court and a tot lot. A picnic shelter and a wheelchair-accessible barbeque, pit. Paved walking and jogging paths. A playground and a picnic shelter and even a plaza where moms and dads can sit down and relax, chat with their friends and neighbors all while keeping a watchful eye on their kids at play.

Oh yeah. Don't forget the new community garden, the very first in Everett owned by the city. 35 lots in all at a fee of just $29 from April to October. Planting has already begun. "I like to water, and I like when plants grow," Mariah's daughter told Muhlstein as she and her mom tended their 10-by-12-foot plot.

Were he still with us the park's namesake - U.S. Senator Henry M. Jackson - would love it too. And not just because he was born and raised in Everett. Though probably best known for his expertise and insights in foreign affairs, the Henry M. Jackson Foundation tells a story about a visit he once paid to a crew at work in the Olympic National Park.

He was so impressed with the energy and the enthusiasm of the young men on the crew that he returned to the nation's capital, enlisted the late Senator Warren Magnuson, his fellow Washingtonian, to ask that he co-sponsor the bill that, with bipartisan support, established the Youth Conservation Corps to instill a sense of reverence for the land and of the responsibilities we all have to protect it.

Because even a little bit of time in the Great Outdoors, even if it's just a neighborhood park, will do to you. "We'll be here at least once every day," Mariah told The Herald. "Cooped up in our apartment this is our land!"

On second thought, with endorsements that ringing, maybe parks and playgrounds don't have a P.R. problem.

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