Since the City recently declared we need a no-bid $185,000 bathroom in Campbell Park to handle the hordes of people, I decided to do an informal survey of park usage over the last month. I drive by that area quite a bit and made it a point to pull over and count the people in the park.
Cooper Springs is right across the street, so I looked at that too. Quite frankly, calling Cooper Springs a ‘park’ is a bit of a stretch. It is a big weed patch that the City mows a trail into…and it resembles just about everyone’s backyard if they let it go for a few months. But whatever….there was ONE car at Cooper Springs on the 17th. That was it.
The following shows which day of September and the time I made the observation….and then number is how many people I saw there:
- 06 3:30pm 2 (teens)
- 07 2:20pm 0
- 09 1:15pm 0
- 12 4:00pm 0
- 14 7:30pm 0
- 15 9:30am 0
- 16 3:15pm 1
- 17 9:00am 0
- 19 10:30am 0
- 26 9:15am 0
- 26 3:00pm 0
- 27 7:00pm 5 (2 were kids)
- 28 2:00pm 0
- 29 9:00am 0
- 30 2:00pm 1
Admittedly, this is a small sample size, but it sure doesn’t look good for the ridiculous argument that there are throngs of people using this park and a $185,000 bathroom is a pressing need. A grand total of 9 people.
I counted one person on Sept 16th at Campbell Park – she was just walking down the sidewalk on Hackberry and not actually in the park…but I counted her anyways, since the above table is so pathetic. The guy on the 30th was painting lines on the basketball court, but I’ll count him too, I guess.
The two teens on Sept 6th appeared to be huffing glue from a paper bag but it’s hard to say for sure from a distance.