NB-38 Correspondence – Janice Dahl
From: Janice [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, May 2, 2023 4:15 PM
To: CityClerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Objection to Renaming Park to Ashlee's Park
-EXTERNAL-
The renaming of Channel View Park or any portion of our park as a memorial to Ashlee Armond is inappropriate and wrong. After partying late night in December 2014 in the neighborhood where she did not live, she drove east on 5th Street and failed to stop at the end of the cul-de-sac with houses on the south side and Kettering Elementary School on the north. She drove over the curb, across the sidewalk, through trash cans, through the trees, through the park, through the protective chain-link fence, over the maintenance road, and into Los Cerritos Channel. For nearly 55 years, no one had failed to see the park, the trees, the trash cans, the fence, etc. except for Ashlee after a night of partying. If it wasn't for the fact that she did this in the very early morning hours, her reckless driving could have killed neighbors and children because the occurrence is adjacent to the elementary school.
To personalize our park as a family memorial is wrong. The park is for our neighborhood residents. We have had many opportunities to rename our park, but our park is for everyone, not for one family as a memorial. It is traumatizing to be reminded every day we walk in the park of this horrible incident. We are reminded every day when we walk by the permanent memorial the family erected 9 years ago in our park with the massive concrete bench and signs. It is selfish of the family to now take over our park name too. The park name needs to remain neutral and not personalized. There are appropriate places for this type of personal memorial, and our neighborhood park is not the place!
Janice Dahl