What George Rogers Park was like on July 4th and 5th

Derrith Schmidt
Jul 7
3 min read

A neighbor wrote to me about what she saw at the George Rogers Park (GRP) in Lake Oswego over the holiday weekend. The park is adjacent to our Old Town neighborhood so many of us are the "eyes and ears" about what happens at the park.

"Here are a few photos of the beach in GRP on the afternoon of the 4th. I was amazed by the amount of stuff families lugged to the beach: chairs, tables, tents, umbrellas, canopy tents, propane and charcoal grills, ice chests, inflatable toys, paddle boards and kayaks."

"I talked to Rick (park maintenance) this morning. He said he started cleaning up the park early Sunday morning. He said the bathrooms were a disaster with plenty of empty alcohol containers. (I think a lot of us would like to go back to separate men’s and women’s restrooms.)"

"I didn’t see Ben LaBounty or any police while I was in the park."

(They were patrolling but also covering the Parade and other City locations)

Our neighbor wrote to me about July 5th at George Rogers Park

"George Rogers Park wasn’t quite as packed with people on July 5th as on the 4th. When I visited the park in late afternoon, there were two fire engines and an ambulance in the lower parking lot."

"I can’t tell you exactly what happened, but the injured or sick person wasn’t on the riverfront; he was on the edge of the creek under the wooden bridge. It's a good thing the tide was low because the EMTs and firemen had to walk along the narrow edge of the creek to reach the man. He was sitting on the ground under the pedestrian bridge with some friends. The EMTs couldn’t wheel their gurney along the edge of the creek so six firemen carried the man out to the gurney that was parked at the south end of the beach."

"Throughout this time there was a steady stream of cars trying to enter the lower parking lot. You would think that one fire engine was clue enough to avoid the lot, but once you’re in the traffic stream, it’s hard to get out. It was quite a mess as drivers turned around and drove back up the hill past all the cars that were still coming down. Too bad there were no traffic officers to warn the drivers entering the park that the parking lot was full."

Our Old Town Neighborhood Association Board asked the City in May about putting up "Parking Full" signs as other popular parks do. This incident on July 5th is a good example of how having those signs ready to go could be used to improve traffic flow and safety in the park and in our Old Town neighborhood.

https://www.oldtownlakeoswego.org/post/how-can-we-work-together-to-balance-public-access-and-neighborhood-livability-at-george-rogers-park

We're also EXTREMELY grateful for Josh and Rick who clean up the MESS from all the GRP visitors.