Residents reclaim neighborhood park

On March 15, Norm Dumaine found himself entrenched in a pit filled with garbage.

Unpleasant as that may seem, his presence in that pit represented a victory he fought for more than two years to achieve. 

Dumaine, president of the Glen Oaks Estates Homeowners Association, was part of a group of residents who successfully campaigned for the city to preserve Fruitville Road Park, a 3.5-acre park located at the corner of Fruitville and Beneva roads.

In 2012, the city agreed to sell that land to Benderson Property Development. In the wake of the agreement, a group of individuals from the nearby Glen Oaks Manor, Glen Oaks Ridge, Glen Oaks Estates and Fairway Oaks residential complexes teamed up to devise a strategy to persuade the city to reverse its action. In February, that work paid off: The City Commission unanimously voted against selling the land.

But those five residents — Dumaine, Millie Small, Joyce Burnham, Renee Gluvna and Edie Kaplan — are not taking too much satisfaction in that victory, moving onto the next phase of their work. And that’s why, on the date of the 2015 Great American Cleanup in March, Dumaine and other residents cleaned up Fruitville Road Park. They are intent on making the land an even more valuable asset for their neighborhoods — even if it means digging into a pit full of garbage. 

“The only free public parkland that we really have in this particular area is right here,” Dumaine said.

Right now, the park could be described as unremarkable. The “gang of five,” as they jokingly call themselves, acknowledges that some people may drive by the park regularly without even knowing it exists. Other than the Circus Trail, which begins near the corner of Fruitville and Beneva, the rest of the land is covered with plants and trees — a good base, maybe, but lacking the amenities people generally associate with a park.

Before residents consider potential improvements such as new benches or a fitness station, they have to take some basic steps. One step was cleaning up the park, which the group says suffered from a lack of maintenance while under county control. Other immediate priorities include adding signage and creating parking.

An even more basic step would be renaming the park. On its own, Fruitville Road Park isn’t illustrative of the park’s location. Matters are made worse once you take into consideration that a county park located less than three miles away is called Fruitville Park. Residents in the area hope to rebrand the park to raise awareness citywide.

One name tossed around thus far is Circus Community Park, a nod to the history of Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in the area. Whatever they land on, the important part is that the park stands out a little more.

“The name is not the crucial thing,” Dumaine said. “We want an identity so people know it’s a park.”

The biggest improvement to the infrastructure that the group has zeroed in on is a bridge that would span a large canal. The canal, part of the Phillippi Creek waterway, prevents residents to the north from easily accessing the parkland.

“The only access we have (to the park) is to go down the Circus Trail to Fruitville Road,” said Gluvna, a resident of Glen Oaks Estates. “That canal separates the trail from the park.”

With the list of potential improvements coming into focus, a major question about funding arises. The city’s parks department is strapped for cash, and Public Works General Manager Todd Kucharski says the city has no plans for the park other than maintaining the grass and vegetation. Still, Kucharski has been working with residents in the area, assisting them with cleanup efforts and advising them about how to improve their chances of securing upgrades.

With city budget talks coming up, Kucharski said people interested in improving their neighborhood park should take advantage of the timing by discussing their needs with individual city commissioners. Some neighborhoods have secured city and county grants to facilitate improvements, while other parks have benefited from private donations. Either way, residents have to be willing to put in the legwork.

“It’s just a matter of them going through the process, seeing what’s available there and maybe getting some funds on their side,” Kucharski said. “Doing that shows your commitment to the commission, that you’re willing to find funding to help support that cause.”

At the urging of Kucharski, the gang of five has met with individual commissioners and received positive responses. The group is encouraged by the progress it has made thus far, both with commissioners and with residents.

“We think we have a lot of support behind us,” Small said. “I think each one of us have had conversations with people who never really knew anything about it and now would support us in what we want to do.”

Still, significant work is left to do before park improvements are actually in place — a task that residents near Fruitville Road Park won’t hesitate to tackle.

“This is my backyard we’re talking about,” Burnham said. “I’m very, very entrenched in this because it’s where I live.”

“This is my backyard we're talking about. I'm very, very entrenched in this because it's where I live.”

– Joyce Burnham,
Fairway Oaks resident