The local newspaper featured on its front page on March 29th, an article on the CSO! project and its influence on the parks of eastern Omaha.
Reporter Nancy Gaarder was the author of "Sewer project targets Omaha parks" which included a picture of work at Elmwood Park.
A personal quote was included:
"In each of these instances, they're looking at parks as city property that they can do whatever they want with," Ducey said. "They're not looking at it like a park, but rather as free space to address storm water runoff. I can't necessarily say that what they are doing is completely negative, but there needs to be more respect given to the parks and some of the features they're changing."
Quite telling was this quote: "'We're not doing anything that hasn't been done throughout time,' Mayor Jim Suttle said."
This is a ridiculous comment. Just because something was done one way at some point in time, that does not mean it should be done now in the same manner. This is 2012, not 1912 and since there are not going to be any new parks in eastern Omaha, the parks need to be actively managed to conserve their resources.
This comment shows an obvious indication of why the park spaces are being targeted by city officials.