Neighborhood Priorities for the City to Address Before May 1, 2026

At our annual neighborhood meeting on Thursday October 9, City Manager Martha Bennett talked through the City team's recommendations of what they could do, what would take more time and money, and what they wouldn't/couldn't do. That proposal from the City is posted here on our blog. Jeff Munro from Parks & Rec also attended the meeting. Here's a link to the Meeting Minutes.

The Neighborhood Board received this proposal on Tuesday evening October 7 and spent significant time together reviewing the City's proposal against solutions suggested by neighbors posted here on our blog. Together as a Board we unanimously agreed to the problems we expect the City to address and presented this handout at the meeting.

Handout distributed at the meeting October 9th

As a Board we disagree with the City's assumption that adding the River pathway will not increase congestion and parking in our neighborhood. We believe some people will park at Foothills Park and ride or walk down the river and discover "there's a beach here!" and they will return to George Rogers Park for "the beach". The River Pathway will introduce more and new visitors to GRP when there is already not enough parking in the designated parking lot for all the park visitors in the summer. We also know that the construction vehicles, equipment and trucks from construction workers will take up parking spaces in the park that will push more visitors to find parking on our neighborhood streets, creating congestion and safety issues for pedestrians and cyclists. Martha was hopeful the construction might keep people away from the park in the summer 2026. We're not as optimistic about that.

We feel Parks & Rec are NOT "GOOD NEIGHBORS" in the summer months to residents and taxpayers in Old Town because we become the overflow parking lot with all the "beach" visitors plus people coming for Parks & Rec controlled programming (camps, events, sports, kayak/SUP rentals, picnic shelter rentals for large groups). PLUS the people coming to use the playground and tennis courts and walking paths.

What is the City going to do to help Old Town residents when there are too many people here? At the meeting Thursday we were glad to hear City Manager Martha Bennett thank us for being collaborators with staff and that "We'll figure this out."

The Mayor and Council have a priority for SAFE STREETS. Please do that here!

We told the City Manager we expect the City to address the priorities outlined below that combine the ideas from the City's proposal and from neighbors that were shared with the City staff before their proposal was created. The Old Town Neighborhood Board - representing the voice of the majority of our residents - expects the City to do the following before the construction of the new River pathway begins and the surge of summer visitors begins in May.

Handout distributed at the meeting October 9th

At the meeting we publicly thanked:

• Our wonderful Police Community Service Officers (Sergeant Hall, Corey and Drew) for what they did during the summer of 2025. And we gave them a plateful of cookies for Martha to deliver to them.

• Our responsive and customer-centric Fire Department team and gave JT who was at the meeting a plateful of cookies to share with his department colleagues.

• We also gave Martha cookies to share with Park Maintenance Lead Josh and Park Rangers Ben and Indra.

We asked Martha for a meeting with her in November to talk through the action plan from the City on the priorities we outlined above. We want to "figure this out" together before May 2026.

Board member and longtime Old Town resident Bruce Glabau shared the history of the stop light at Wilbur and State Street. George Rogers nee Rodrigues, after whom the park was named, and who contributed hugely to the development and maintenance of the park and was a well-loved city councilman, was struck by a car there. (Olivia Rossi, a family relative who was at the meeting Thursday, recalled for us he passed away one month after the accident). After he passed, a stop light was put there. We see similar concerns with safety today; and do not want a repetition of someone getting hit by a car before we implement common sense preventative measures.

We are interested in learning more about the new software the City has purchased "Place AI" that allows the City to use Park visitors phone information (not personally identified) to collect data on where people are coming from and at what times/days. The Park Rangers told us on our "walk about" with City staff that two thirds of visitors in the summer are NOT from LO. It will be helpful to have data to better understand visitors and patterns on hot days/weekends where the overflow parking into the neighborhood is the biggest problem. The Parks team also shared in the proposal that they have data on Park usage that we'd like to review and understand.

Martha explained that the temporary no parking signs and neighbors putting out cones in front of our homes to reserve parking for guests and service contractors is not enforceable by the City police. Yet, the City uses these techniques in the Park, for events like the Arts Festival and at summer concerts at Foothills Park and they work so as neighborhood we may all be buying cones to use next summer. This is especially important to us for our elderly and disabled neighbors who need to park in front of their homes and front walkways.

Martha also shared that we can request permits from City Engineering for securing space in front of our homes for moving trucks and other needs. We just need to call and request the permit. These permits are also available to close streets for neighborhood parties. Perhaps we'll have more of those on hot summer weekends!

We are also looking forward to viewing the drone footage the Fire Department took on a hot summer Sunday afternoon in August when they drove the huge fire truck through our neighborhood streets and into the park. We'd also like to review the safety assessment referenced in the City's proposal for solutions. Thank you to the Fire Department for being so proactive and thorough in preventing problems and being prepared in all difficult circumstances to get to neighbors and park visitors in emergencies.