Fight for Park Pits Residents vs. Scouts

Smack in the middle of South Pasadena’s estate district is a patch of park where children are discouraged from running around and shrieking, families can’t reserve space for a party and the jungle gym was briefly condemned.

But things didn’t come to a name-calling head in the small, usually child-friendly town until residents living near Eddie Park messed with the Girl Scouts.

It took nearly three hours to settle the dispute at a City Hall meeting this week. The Girl Scouts won. Troops will be able to meet 77 hours a month at the park clubhouse, despite the neighbors’ attempt to restrict them to 39 hours.

The months-long dispute gathered steam when Girl Scouts’ parents and other residents began to review city policies at Eddie Park, where vigilant neighbors have long worked with city officials to win special limits on park operations.

In a park of less than one acre, for instance, visitors are not allowed to barbecue or set up a moon bounce, as they can at the city’s three other parks. Fees to rent the clubhouse have quadrupled since 1998, from $50 to $200.

In response to neighbors’ complaints about excessive use, the city ended the reservations policy at Eddie to reduce organized gatherings, which had included weddings and large birthday parties with rental equipment.

Two exceptions to the reservation policy were granted, but only to Eddie Park neighbors. They book the grounds for their annual Fourth of July party and barbecue and for an annual Greek-themed party.

In the past, neighbors rejected the installation of donated playground equipment, which was disassembled and stored in a city basement until Boy Scouts retrieved it and installed it at the city’s Arroyo Park.

Few had complained much about the special policies at little Eddie Park, a pocket of green that includes an old three-story mansion with towering columns. The property, located in South Pasadena’s Marengo Estate District, was willed to the town in 1934 by Ellen Mary Eddie, who left virtually everything she owned to her faithful housekeeper and the city.

But late last year, parents and others mobilized when word spread that Girls Scout troop meetings were under siege. When the Scouts reluctantly agreed to cut back their meetings to appease neighbors, petitions and letters started flying.

In letters and public comments, dozens of residents accused the neighbors of being whiny, elitist, even anti-Girl Scout. It was said they were intent on turning a public park into a private yard.

“Please, don’t call us names,” park neighbor Tuncer Toprakci said to a packed crowd at the Wednesday night council meeting.

Fran Norris Scoble, head of the all-girl Westridge School in Pasadena, wrote a letter to the city on school stationery saying that the increasing numbers of noisy Scouts “intrudes unduly on evening time in the neighborhood.” Scoble lives next door to the clubhouse.

Kurt Lash, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Law School who happens to be a Brownie dad, weighed in: “This park, like all parks in the city, belongs to the entire community,” he said. “This is an unfair, unequal enforcement of city policies that have been unduly influenced by a small group of vocal neighbors.”

The council voted 3 to 2 to increase the Scouts’ use of the clubhouse. Siding with residents, the policy against reservations for the grounds was kept in place. But neighbors will no longer have exclusive use of the park for their two annual parties and the city will study whether it is safe to barbecue at Eddie Park.

Stacy Gewecke, a Scouting official, pledged the girls will be responsible and considerate of neighbors, in adherence to Girl Scout traditions.