By SUSAN PARK

When Sybil Knudson, Barb Gross, and Jim Taylor presented an idea for a new public park on the west street end of 125th on Haller Lake, it sounded like a great idea. Although I live in the Haller Lake neighborhood, I am only able to enjoy the full bounty of the lake during our Haller Lake Community Clubıs picnic held at a memberıs private home each year. Then I can row and relax and enjoy the plentiful wildlife, gaze at the blue herons, and breath in the tranquil aroma of water lilies.

Barb Gross thought it would be a great way to pay for desperately needed shore improvements to an eroding beach while creating a public park. She lives on the other side of the lake where she has full view of the park and the park-goers who use the bushes since there are no facilities. The other good thing about turning the street-end into a park, she reasoned, was that strict usage times could be enforced by the police.

Other Club members thought it sounded like a great idea, too. In December, we unanimously voted to approve the submission of the proposal to the Pro Parks Levy Oversight Committee for consideration. The committee would be awarding $6 million to several worthy park causes and this one met all the criteria ‹ including its close proximity to low-income housing on Aurora Avenue.

Several club members formed a committee to create a plan with a handicapped accessible walkway down to a dock, a porta-potty, a parking area, and a park bench. The plan would also fix the lakeıs eroding shoreline. It sounded fantastic. I couldnıt wait to organize my barbecue!

Jacob Sinai, owner and manager of the Bella-B-Mobile Home Park, located just a few blocks west of the lake, also expressed enthusiasm over the plan. ³Anything that will upgrade the community, I think is great,² he said. While Iıve been a resident of the Haller Lake neighborhood for five years, I had no idea up until now that the street end was public, or, for that matter, that it even existed.

Apparently, neither did many others, and Iıve since learned that the people who live on the street end would like to keep it that way. When they learned that a park proposal had been submitted for consideration, they showed up in force to voice their opposition.

What seemed at first like a battle between the haves and the have-nots, the people who live on the lake vs. the people who donıt was really a more complex issue. I listened as, one by one, different residents stood up to voice their concerns:

³Itıs a narrow space and thereıs no place for turning around,² said Don Brown, the gentleman who has hosted our annual Club picnic at his large two-acre plot for many years. ³Thereıs a potential for people bumping into cars and blocking driveways.²

Vera Hansen, a lakeshore resident for 37 years, said, ³Kids throw garbage cans in the lake, and who gets it? The people who live on the lake.² The garbage floats all over the lake and lands in various locations along the shore, she added.

³Unless everything is anchored so you canıt move it, itıll end up in the lake,² said Sara Culver. ³Kids are smoking pot and throwing condoms in my yard.²

Concerns were voiced about noise control, trash, general maintenance and even swimming, which can be quite dangerous ‹ one of Hansenıs neighbors drowned last year when he became entangled in water lily roots.

Former insurance commissioner Dick Marquardt, who lives along the street-end, a few houses from the lake, summed it up: ³The people who propose this are very fine people... and awfully good citizens, but thereıs a lot of people who live on the lake who donıt want it.²

In April, Haller Lake Club members will be officially informed by the City if the street-end park proposal will be included in the upcoming levy. However, Parks spokesperson Catherine Anstett told the Sun that it will most likely not be due to the opposition. Furthermore, she said, the Parks Department does not develop lands next to large bodies of water unless a lifeguard will be present because of liability issues.

While the street-end residents appear to have won, it looks like itıs back to square one in terms of preserving the shoreline. Gross, who says sheıs burned out, will be sitting the next one out.