Big Rocks Mean Weeds, Trash and NO MOUNTAIN

Lee Byrd, the Treasurer of nearby Newman Park Neighborhood Association and co-owner of Cinco Puntos Press, sent the following email to El Paso Parks and Recreation Department Assistant Director, Joel McKnight:

These little pocket parks are a very sweet idea, but they don’t really seem to have been thought through.

Yesterday, my friend and I went to sit in the little park between Elm and Louisiana on Memphis and underneath the bench was covered with ants from an ant hill close by so we had to get up quickly. The big rocks (so many of them!) had caught lots of
garbage. The little pebbles had slid out of place and covered the sidewalk.

This morning another friend and I went with a broom and garbage sacks to sweep and pick up garbage, but the gravel was too heavy to sweep, plus the weeds between the rocks were hard to get it. Some were so big we couldn’t pull them out.

If the intention of these little parks was to be a pleasant place to sit and an easy place to maintain, that isn’t happening. The Neighborhood Association is concerned about these parks and glad to help to make them work. They do need maintenance. And they surely don’t need all those big rocks.

We appreciate all you can let us know about these parks and the detention ponds.

Mrs. Byrd is referring to the "pocket" park created by open space enhancement funds which also paid for the improvements and environmental art at the Van Buren Dam site. The little park is located in the 2700 block of Memphis Avenue.

Indeed there has been little thinking about landscaping around the City of El Paso.

All those big rocks at the little pocket park make it hard to manage weeds and debris. All those big rocks will eventually choke off the growth of the native plants put in the park.

ALL THOSE BIG ROCKS mean our mountainside is being removed and not one damn thing is being done to stop it. In fact, the City of El Paso enables this environmental destruction and policy of unsustainability!