The park you never heard of

By RALPH BARTHOLDT

Staff Writer

COEUR d’ALENE — A carefully placed corner of country has become an ideological battleground between the city’s parks department and residents of a neighborhood bordering the 16-acre swath of city-owned greenery.

On a knoll above Fernan Lake, in a pasture newly mowed, city sounds fade on a breeze not stiff enough to ward off the noon heat.

Distant sirens whining on the interstate and the buzz of a lawnmower, far off, are transient and grow dim.

From up here along east Fernan Hill Road, an occasional passing car can be heard, but mostly it is the trill of a wren, a robin’s brief fluting from the shade of trees, an insect buzzing and a whole lot of quiet.

It’s no wonder the neighbors of Veterans Centennial Park want the city to keep its hands off the property the city has owned for more than 25 years, which has been used by Fernan Hill residents as a private preserve.

“We want it left the way it is,” Walt Richard told Parks and Recreation commission members when they met in June. “The park is working right now.”

The city, however, has another expectation, which has caused tension in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Since being donated to the city in 1989 by Emma VanLaken — her grandfather Harry Seagraves homesteaded there in 1885 — the city has followed the wishes of the former owner that the land not be developed. Instead, it’s to be used as a park to memorialize veterans.

In the pasture along what appears to be a private driveway — a narrow gravel path — a rock lets visitors know they are at their destination. The name, Veterans Centennial Park, is engraved on the boulder near a sign prohibiting dogs and motorized vehicles.

The city has done little else to promote the semi-remote property, or to make it more user-friendly for taxpayers.

That could change.

Parks superintendent Bill Greenwood said the city cuts the grass four times per year, leaving swales of field grass, spotted with yarrow and purple vetch, along the edges where deer move at dusk.

Not far from the rock, the city plans to create a parking area that invites people to use the facility and stay a while. It also has plans for a vault toilet, benches and landscape features that could include native plants and trees. Trails are planned and construction will blend into the park’s natural features. It could be an arboretum.

But neighbors contest the plans.

“They want us to leave it alone, and not touch it,” Greenwood said. “I feel, and the open space commission feels, that our plans fall in line with Emma’s wishes.”

For Richard, who lives on nearby Victorian Drive, the city’s planned park improvements cut against the core of the former owner’s wishes.

“It had been donated to the city with the stipulation it never be developed,” Richard said. “(VanLaken) had a wish, and that wish was this remain in as natural of a state as possible.”

For Parks and Rec officials that means improvements must be basic. They think installing a toilet and parking lot are fundamental. There are no plans to raze trees or change the slightly tilted landscape that is mostly unencumbered by visitors. Plans call for aesthetic improvements that will draw visitors.

“If you went up Fernan Hill Drive, you wouldn’t know (the park) was there,” Greenwood said. “As a city park, as a city of Coeur d’Alene Park, as a Parks Department park... we’re going to begin to promote this park, absolutely.”

There is no place now for visitors to park vehicles. The city wants the land to be used as a natural area, and outdoor classroom for students, but there is no place for a bus to park.

“If we’re going to develop this and promote this, people need someplace to park,” Greenwood said.

To Ron Jones of Fernan Hill Drive, laying pavement at the site would be a breach of the original contract.

“You put one square inch of pavement and it’s not going to be as natural as possible,” Jones said. “This is going to be a war of semantics. It’s going to go to lawyers and all kinds of stuff.”

The city said it will continue to have discussions about the park’s best use, and it plans an autumn workshop — no date has been set — to discuss improvements at the site.