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Ashland, Oregon HOME Valley & State Sports Nation & World Opinion/Editorial Classifieds Business Columnists Local Issues Obituaries Weather Archive Revels Etcetera Backpage Hot Topics Most Viewed Forum Photo Galleries Video Readers Polls O-Zone Online Games Movie Preview Special Sections Real Estate Guide Menu Guide Shakespeare Subscribe Contact Us Rate Card Place an Ad August 27, 2005 Garfield slides worry parents Visitors also irritated by an active beehive By Jennifer Squires Ashland Daily Tidings Bryce, left, and Avery play on a broken play structure that may be too dangerous for children at Garfield Park in Ashland. Orville Hector | Ashland Daily Tidings Kids miss the slide. Parents are more concerned with the jagged metal supports jutting out of the wood chips where a slide used to swoop to the ground. Parks department workers removed one Garfield Park slide a month ago. They plan to replace the apparatus after school begins in September. “We can’t do the work this time of year because it’s a little too busy over there this time of year,” Ashland Parks Director Steve Gies said. Eventually, all of the slides in Garfield Park and some in Lithia Park, where the largest slide has been gone since the spring, will be replaced. Fresh wood chips will fill the sandbox at Garfield and new climbing structures may be added, according to Gies. But until parks usage slows in the fall, the only obstacle keeping children off the ramshackle play structure is a caution sign. “They really should cordon off the two areas where the slides are — something to protect the kids better,” said Lisa Ennis, whose 6-year-old daughter likes to play at Garfield Park. Parks employees tried to blockade the hazards, but people repeatedly took down boards that had been put up, Gies said. The support poles that had held up the slide are not wrapped with anything to protect children who might bump into sharp edges. “There’s kids running around all over the place and there’s this little square thing sticking up with the jagged metal on one side,” said Rebecca Cox, who brings her two children to the park from their home across the street. The poles are not a safety concern, according to Gies. “A pole’s a pole,” Gies said. “It’s not really going to do anything.” Bumps and bees The missing slide is just one maintenance issue frustrating parents who bring their children to the neighborhood park. The merry-go-round has been removed, a second slide has a large bump at the end of it and bees swarm in a 15-foot area around a beehive in the ground near play structures, according to protective parents. “On the second slide there’s a bump at the bottom and I couldn’t tell if there was a crack,” Ennis said. “But all they did was take a caution sign and put it up against it. ... It was very unsafe.” Cox contacted the parks department three weeks ago to ask about repairing the apparatus and didn’t get an answer. A week ago, she contacted the police department because she wanted someone to look into the dangerous play areas. “It definitely needs to be fixed. ... It’d be nice to keep our parks nice,” Cox said. “I’ve been keeping it down to swinging. They can’t go on the whole slide-thing because it just looks really dangerous.” Staff writer Jennifer Squires can be reached at 482-3456 x 3019 or [email protected]. --> Copyright © 2006 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers. All Rights Reserved.