Playground equipment is seen at St. John's Park in downtown Green Bay April 7, 2025. PC: Fox 11 Online
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A Green Bay park known as a hangout for the homeless is one step closer to losing its playground equipment.
The city’s parks committee unanimously recommended that move Wednesday evening, and the full city council will vote on it on Tuesday.
Neighbors and property owners around St. John’s Park told the committee something needs to be done with what they’re seeing at the park.
“That space has given cover for criminal activity,” said Darrell Kocha, a nearby resident. “I’ve witnessed rampant drug use, drug dealing, people having relations under a blanket out in open space.”
“The building next to me has had feces on it,” said Cinnamon Harley, who owns an apartment property near the park. “I’ve had urine on my building. Just a month and a half ago, we’re cleaning up needles out of my property.”
Green Bay Parks Director Dan Ditscheit says the city’s desire to take out the park’s playground equipment isn’t necessarily because of those issues.
“We currently have over 50 playgrounds in our park system,” said Ditscheit. “There are no parks that are older than this one, as far as playgrounds go.”
Ditscheit says the equipment was installed in 1994 and 30 years is the typical replacement time. He says the playground is also due for new wood chips, which is a $2,000-$3,000 cost every other year.
“What we’ve been consistently seeing is the number of children playing on this playground decreases every single year, to the point where our staff hasn’t seen any children playing on this playground in a number of years,” said Ditscheit.
“It seems to me that police inaction is causing the parks department to suffer,” said David Badillo, who lives near the park.
The city and the adjacent St. John’s homeless shelter previously tried to guide homeless people to the park so they could try to get them resources in one spot. The city also created four positions in recent years to focus on homeless issues.
“The city is doing a lot,” said Green Bay City Council Vice President Bill Galvin, who is a retired police officer. “We’re not going to solve this overnight. So, in the meantime, we’re talking about do we spend $3,000 short term or not.”
The motion the committee passed included a request for city staff to come up with a plan for what could replace the playground area. There are two different public playgrounds within a few blocks of the park.
Comments