After Years of Beaucoup Metro Promises, Morgan Park Still Sits Playground-less in a Neighborhood Full of Kids

The past 3 years are littered with a string of broken Metro government promises on upgrades to Morgan Park, particularly with respect to the installation of a new playground for the neighborhood children. I find it particularly vexing to watch upgrades go up in parks at other ends of the compass in Nashville and wonder whether the delays have simply to do with a lack of will to provide for kids in the North End.

Here is the frustrating timeline for Morgan Park playground promises:

• August 2006 -- Metro Parks says that a new playground has been designed
• December 2006 -- Metro Parks says that new playground will be finished by mid-summer 2007
• July 2007 -- Mid-summer passes without construction of new playground
• June 2008 -- Mayor Karl Dean announces double-digit budget cuts to Metro Parks
• November 2008 -- Mayor Dean calls CM Erica Gilmore to tell her that Morgan Park will have a playground "this year."
• December 2008 -- Re: "this year," the calendar year passes without playground construction starting (in June 2009, Metro's 08-09 budget year will pass without construction starting)
• April 2009 -- Parks Director Roy Wilson pledges that playground construction will begin in 10 weeks
• July 2009 -- 10 weeks pass, and as you can see from the photo I've taken above of the playground area today, no construction has started.

Please write CM Erica Gilmore (erica.gilmore@gmail.com) and please contact the Mayor's Office of Neighborhoods and find out what they've done with the new playground that Morgan Park was promised for so long.