SWEPCO Park is small and pretty, with tall, gracious, long-limbed trees that can cool people down even on hot Louisiana summer days. Tucked away in the Allendale, the park usually draws people only from the neighborhood, unlike Betty Virginia Park in South Highlands, which is large and with a playground and numerous amenities for all age groups. During the past year, though, the City of Shreveport seems to have taken a keen interest in SWEPCO Park and unfortunately, it may not be in a good way.
Last February, Shreveport Public Assembly and Recreation (SPAR) suddenly removed SWEPCO’s playground equipment and barbeque pits that had been in the park for decades, without notifying Allendale residents ahead of time. When SPAR officials were questioned about the removal, they said a lawsuit had been filed against them because the playground equipment was unsafe. Thus far, no one has found out if the lawsuit exists or why barbeque pits had to be removed along with the playground apparatus.
The second event happened last September. After months of SPAR neglecting the park, which resulted in thigh-high grass and weeds in parts of it, Allendale resident Louis Brossett began mowing the park’s grass. When a SPAR employee spotted him doing it, he told him he was not allowed to mow the park’s grass because he was not a SPAR employee and therefore not insured for it. It was only after Brossett and other activists informed SPAR they had called the media to film the park’s neglect that employees were sent out to mow and tend the park. “The vegetation was overgrown and snakes were living underneath it, all over the park,” Shreveport activist John Perkins said. “If I had done that to my yard, the city would have come by and mowed my lawn and then fined me for not taking care of the property.”
Then, two days ago, on November 15th, Brossett said an unknown person texted him that s/he had heard SPAR was planning to remove SWEPCO Park’s pavilion. No date for doing it was given. Brossett, Perkins and other concerned citizens went to SWEPCO Park Wednesday morning to stand near and in the pavilion, in case a SPAR crew showed up to start dismantling it. They called Ronnie Hammond, Assistant Director of SPAR and other staff to confirm the plan was real. In the late morning, Brossett told me a man identified as Steve Lott driving a SPAR vehicle and wearing a SPAR uniform introduced himself as a construction manager at SPAR and had a work order to tear down the pavilion. It was “his project” and he had “pulled the pavilion’s permits.” A KTAL TV news team verified they had seen the SPAR employee leave as they pulled up to SWEPCO Park to interview Brossett on the issue. The SPAR employee wished them “good luck” as he drove away.
Later in the day, Ronnie Hammond and another SPAR staff spoke to Brossett and Perkins, saying they had no knowledge of a plan to take down the pavilion and decided to go to the experts from https://infantrylandscaping.com/ to ask for suggestions. SPAR’s Director Shelly Raigle also denied there was a plan to remove the pavilion although she apparently also pointed out the pavilion had been built in the 1950s and was old. Former Mayor Cedric Glover, who is now a Louisiana State Representative, told me today that he had the pavilion built in the 1990s during his tenure on City Council. The KTAL TV news team told me Mayor Tyler’s Director of Communications Africa Price had said to them that there was no plan to remove the pavilion or that any SPAR employees had been in SWEPCO Park earlier in the day. My calls to Mr. Hammond and the Mayor’s Office were not returned. Wednesday evening, the park was filled with Allendale residents sitting and chatting in the pavilion while scores of kids ran laughing around the park. Residents plan to be at the pavilion Thursday in case SPAR starts dismantling it.
Allendale residents and activists fear that the playground removal, refusal to maintain the park, and now the possible plan to remove the pavilion are all part of the city’s efforts to decommission SWEPCO Park. The reason? SWEPCO Park is the only obstacle to having the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) approve an I-49 innercity connector route built through Allendale.
On September 9, 2016, the Shreveport Metropolitan Planning Commission (MPC) held a meeting to hear Providence Engineering Group’s two recommended routes for building the I-49 innercity corridor. The North Louisiana Council of Governments (NLCOG), MPC’s transportation arm, hired Providence to conduct in-depth studies of five alternative routes, four of which would have cut through Allendale. The studies took over six years and cost $3 million, which the city paid for with Louisiana’s unclaimed property fund. The two recommended routes Providence was going to announce would then have to be submitted to the federal government, which would then determine if the routes complied with the National Environmental Protection Act.
The problem was, Providence could not recommend two routes to the MPC. The FHWA ruled three of the five routes out early on because one, in essence, would have cut through a park (Cross Lake), another cut through a historic landmark (Ledbetter Heights), and the third would have cut through Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church, which its members declined to move to a different area of the city. Providence was left with the two through-Allendale center routes to recommend for NEPA study, but the FHWA vetoed them as well because they would cut through SWEPCO Park. That goes against federal rules that prohibit highways being built through public parks.
Perkins and other Shreveport activists have learned since the September meeting that SWEPCO Park contains the remains of one of four Civil War forts built in Shreveport, named for Confederate States General Albert Sidney Johnston. FHWA also prohibits federal highways being built through historic landmarks (as was the case for the route planned through Ledbetter Heights.) Between SWEPCO Park being a public park and having important historic ruins on it, the likelihood of the MPC getting around these issues, so the I-49 routes could be approved seems very low.
However, Allendale and other Shreveport residents opposed to the I-49 inner city corridor (ICC) suspect the city is deliberating taking away features that will make SWEPCO Park no longer look, function, or be experienced as a park. The three above events suggest it is a realistic possibility. An anonymous source knowledgeable of MPC and NLCOG plans also told me on Wednesday that FHWA will allow the I-49 innercity connector to be built through SWEPCO Park if it is no longer a park. The inability of Providence Engineering to recommend any routes last September was a big setback for the I-49 inner city project, on which millions had already been spent.
At the very least, the City’s lack of transparency and involvement of the public – the taxpayers –is troubling. Louisiana House Representative and former Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover pointedly said, “I would be under the impression if you are going to shut down a park, at the very least, it would necessitate action and approval by City Council. At the very least, the head of SPAR would issue a written communication as a record of what is transpiring.”
We hope the City is listening.