WW was first to report<\/a> the city had ordered the slide shut down due to concerns for the grass.<\/p>\nThe Brooklyn Park waterslide has been a seasonal fixture since 1978, when the city started a summer kids day program. Funding was cut in 2017, at which point the citizen group took over and continued operation of the program and the waterslide. Park neighbors Jim Houser and Liz Dally have supplied it with water via a hose from their home on Southeast 10th Avenue ever since.<\/p>\n
Starting Tuesday, Portlanders expressed outrage at the news.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a park. The function is for recreation,\u201d wrote Nick Matthews on Facebook, in a comment that was representative of the vast majority of public sentiment. \u201cIf the grass gets damaged, that\u2019s a good thing. That means it\u2019s being enjoyed. It\u2019s there for the public\u2019s entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The aggrieved included several members of the Portland City Council. Councilor Mitch Green tells WW he experienced a \u201cvisceral reaction\u201d when he read the news, after which he wrote to interim parks bureau director Art Pearce imploring him to reverse the decision. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of big, challenging issues that have no immediate solution,\u201d Green wrote. \u201cWe\u2019re asking a lot of Portlanders to hold the faith right now. Taking away this small beloved tradition adds unnecessary pain and sends a pretty bad signal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liz Dally has lived next door to the park since 1975. On busy days, she estimates crowds fluctuate between 20 and 50 kids, more on hotter days. In winter, the hill is popular with sledders.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just feels like, here we go again. Don\u2019t they have something better to do?\u201d Dally says. \u201cIt\u2019s just a symptom of our siloed city government, where all someone can think about is their own little piece of it and not, what\u2019s really important here? What\u2019s our purpose?\u201d<\/p>\n
Summer days in the park with basketball, card games and trips down the waterslide have been summer staples for park neighbor Ellis Gaard, 17, as far back as he can remember.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was always a lot of fun,\u201d says Gaard, who\u2019s preparing to enter his senior year at Cleveland High School. \u201cThey\u2019ve been putting that waterslide out for decades, and the grass is back by, like, the end of September every year. We live in Oregon. Stuff grows. Stuff grows back immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Brooklyn Park day program will run Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays through Aug. 21. The waterslide appears on days with temperatures between 90 and 95 degrees.<\/p>\n
Willamette Week\u2019s reporting has real-life impact that changes laws, forces action by civic leaders, and drives compromised politicians from public office. <\/p>\n
Support WW.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After days of public outrage, city leaders indicate they\u2019ll reverse a decision to forbid a popular citizen-run waterslide…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-311223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}