PRESS RELEASE: CALL FOR THE REMOVAL OF PARKS COMMISSIONER OTT LOVELL
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 12/5/2022
CONTACT: savethefdrmeadows@gmail.com / Save The Meadows
Community members and organizations call on Kathryn Ott Lovell’s removal
as Philadelphia’s Parks and Recreation Commissioner
PHILADELPHIA - The Coalition to Save the Meadows announced today their call for the removal of Kathryn Ott Lovell as Philadelphia's Parks and Recreation Commissioner.
Appointed by Mayor James Kenney in January, 2016, Ott Lovell was instrumental in the development and approval of the controversial Master Plan for FDR Park, which includes engineered wetlands in its “environmental core,” now underway, and 16 artificial turf athletic fields at its western “urban edge,” where meadows now exist after the closure of the golf course in 2019.
The text of the call:
CALL FOR THE REMOVAL OF PARKS COMMISSIONER OTT LOVELL
Year after year, Philadelphians tally up the losses in our tree canopy, and wonder how this can keep happening. The city has acknowledged the importance of trees in climate resilience, stated its goals for canopy growth, and labored over its Urban Forest Strategic Plan. Environmental activists, tree tenders, and community members plant tree after tree. Yet Philadelphia’s tree canopy decreased by 6% in just 10 years.
The loss of tree cover is just one example of community efforts being undermined by a Parks Commissioner who, charged with the stewardship of our natural resources, surveys our public parklands and searches for opportunities to monetize them, clearcutting the urban forest and approving and greenwashing projects regardless of community needs and input.
In Cobbs Creek Park, Ott Lovell endorsed the destruction of nearly 100 acres of forest and meadows as the city signed over 350 acres of the park to a private foundation for a golf course, under a 70-year lease, for one dollar. The public was barely notified or consulted in this large-scale privatization of public parkland.
In Tinicum Marsh and FDR Park, two projects that devastate tree canopy and natural wetlands have become intertwined under Ott Lovell’s leadership. In order to expand cargo services, the city-owned PHL Airport plans to pave over 40 acres of emergent wetlands and waterways in Tinicum, but must make up the loss elsewhere. In a negotiated land swap, Ott Lovell invited the airport to clearcut and excavate 70 acres of trees and existing wetlands in the park and create 33 acres of engineered wetlands, a net loss. Artificially created wetlands do not offer the same carbon offset benefits or biodiversity as natural wetlands.
Ott Lovell allowed the airport’s contractor to begin aggressively felling trees with heavy equipment without notifying park users, fencing off construction areas or even posting warning signs. Park users and their animals were endangered by trees falling across paths they were using, some only narrowly escaping injury or worse.
Ott Lovell’s Master Plan for FDR Park requires the clearcutting of hundreds of additional trees, including protected heritage trees, to replace the remaining 90 acres of sedge meadow and woodland with artificial turf, roads, and parking lots, even though in the 2018 community engagement process, respondents consistently prioritized trails and paths over athletic fields. Then the golf course closed, the public discovered the Meadows, and COVID changed our relationship to public space. Ott Lovell did not invite new community input, despite mounting public requests and outcry.
Ott Lovell ignores the critical and inherent importance of our woods, meadowlands, and wetlands for mental health, for violence reduction, for reducing the heat island effect, for managing stormwater and floodwater, for mitigating air pollution, for creative play or passive recreation, and for providing habitat and migration zones for wildlife. She publicly acknowledges the need for shared, natural green spaces to help combat the crisis of gun violence, but she requested no budgetary support for natural spaces for 2023. In fact, her decisions eliminate those spaces.
Ott Lovell acknowledges the importance of youth sports, but has ignored calls for equitable investment in our neighborhood athletic fields, many of which sit neglected, often behind locked gates. Rather than upgrade them, she would spend $99 million on carcinogenic artificial turf fields in the far south of the city to generate some $300,000 a year in market-rate rental fees from adult leagues and tournaments.
Commissioner Ott Lovell is not a responsible steward of our public spaces and shared natural resources. As Grid magazine put it on March 27, 2022, “Philadelphia deserves an administration that puts its residents first and takes their environment, environmental justice, and access to public space seriously.”
We agree. The Department of Parks and Recreation with Ott Lovell at the helm threatens Philadelphia’s urban tree canopy and climate resilience and sacrifices community needs on the altar of increased revenue.
Enough of the destruction. Commissioner Kathryn Ott Lovell must be removed.
Our next Parks Commissioner should be not just a deal-maker, and more than a competent administrator. They must be a proven and committed protector of our natural resources and a tireless advocate for all of our parks — not as a source of revenue, but as a public resource for our whole community to share and enjoy.
# # #
Add your comments and signature below to join in our call.
