With a little less than a week to go before the protest period for the potential sale or transfer of Quaker Park comes to an end, residents gathered at the park Saturday to raise awareness and signatures for a circulating petition.
The Save Quaker Park BBQ and Family day ran from the late morning to late evening hours featuring food, games and opportunities to sign a petition protesting the city’s plans to sell the property. Organizer Steve Rader tells KVOE News while it may be lacking many of the amenities of other city parks, Quaker still sees a lot of activity and holds a special place in many people’s hearts.
Rader adds he wants to see the park remain open for local youth, especially those who live in the immediate area.
Saturday’s event comes after the city of Emporia designated the park as Surplus Real Property back in March. That action followed a request from the Emporia Land Bank to take ownership of the property with plans to develop three new homes, one of which would be earmarked for Habitat for Humanity.
The city of Emporia had opened a petition window last year as it started to consider these plans with an original protest petition gaining only a handful of signatures. Since reopening the petition period, the latest petition had garnered around 200 signatures at last word.
If the petition were to gain the needed 462 signatures from registered Emporia voters to be deemed valid, city commissioners would then have two courses of action available, either end plans to sell the property or place the item on a future election ballot. With that in mind, KVOE asked Rader what he would like to see done if the sale were to ultimately fail.
Rader would hope to have new equipment added to the park to bring it up to the standard of other properties within Emporia. During a previous installment of KVOE’s monthly Q&A With Trey segment, City Manager Trey Cocking noted the typical playgrounds in place at other city parks come with a hefty price tag.
To that point, Rader stated he has spoken with a local non-profit group that has stated it would be willing to help raise money to support future additions to the park.
