Thoughts on Quaker Park

Now that the hard work of collecting signatures is done, and there’s nothing to do but (im)patiently wait for all of those scribbled names to be scrutinized and tallied - we thought we’d share some of our thoughts and observations from this process.

First and foremost, we want to say how much we appreciate the community support! We talked to so many people in this process and the vast majority of people we met were eager to sign the petition to help save Quaker Park. Those few who didn’t were always respectful and we didn’t have a single contentious interaction. We had over 50 people sign the contact form on our website, many of whom indicated that they were ineligible to sign but just wanted to follow the progress. We think that speaks to the commitment we Emporians have to our community and the universality of this issue - parks are a precious asset in our town, and we want to preserve them - even when they aren’t necessarily “our” neighborhood park.

We spoke with many people who wished that they could sign but weren’t registered to vote. Many cited frustration with national level politics as a reason to give up on the political process altogether. While we understand the sentiment, we think this is a mistake. Local policy affects all of our lives much more than the national level decisions, and our influence on local matters is far greater! Registering to vote isn’t an obligation to do so, but it does give you the option to participate when there is an issue or an election that you care about. We encourage everyone reading this - please, register to vote. It may be too late to sign this petition, but there will be other opportunities to get involved - be ready.

We also want to mention how much we appreciate the transparency and cooperation from the Emporia government staff in helping us with the petition process. As far as we know, the City was under no obligation to provide the petition language - we appreciate that they did so, thus saving us the expense of hiring a private attorney to provide guidance. This was our first effort at circulating a petition and we found the City and County staff very helpful in answering all of our questions along the way.

We think we have the signatures we need - but we won’t know for sure until the City gets done counting (we ended up at 800+ total - and about 650 that should count). Even if we aren’t successful, how awesome was this effort to save the park? A community BBQ, c’mon - wasn’t that great? How many of you (like us) had a conversation with someone you wouldn’t otherwise have gotten to know? We know we have made some new friends in all of this. It was refreshing to connect with so many people from all walks of life. We hope we can keep this momentum rolling and all keep coming together to make Emporia a better place to live for everybody!

- Eric Paul, Steve Rader, Sara Kelley, Elexa Dawson and Thomas Waters 

Updates

March 14, 2024 

There has been some confusion about whether or not you have to have voted in the last election in order to be elligible to sign the petition. We have confirmed with the office of the Kansas Secretary of State - you need not have to have voted in the previous election to sign. It is 10% of the NUMBER of people who voted in the previous election - not 10% of the specific voters who voted. Here' is a link to the K.S. 12-1301 that guides this process. Don Loux will be collecting signatures at Bingo at the VFW tonight (Thursday, March 14th) - he'll be in an orange shirt.

 You do need to be registered to vote (within the City limits of Emporia) in order to have your signature counted, here is an application for voter registration.

March 12, 2024 

The Emporia Gazette has started a series of article about Quaker Park, the first installment describes the history of the park, "An uncertain future: A look at the history of Emporia's Quaker Park."

March 6, 2024 

Today (March 6th, 2024), the commission unanimously passed two resolutions. Resolution 3726, which designates Quaker Park as "surplus real property," and Resolution 3727 authorizing city staff to publish notice of the proposed sale of Quark Park. Although no explanation was offered at the City Commission meeting today, the existence of Resolution 3726 and changes in the sale notice resolution from the earlier meeting (3716) and the current resolution (3727) suggest that a step was missed with the earlier resolution and the Commission must first take competing offers if they intend to transfer ownership of the park. The City has created a web page outlining the specifics of what is required for the petition process. We encourage you to read both the city's web page about Quaker Park, and the first two sections of the agenda packet from today's meeting for a thorough understanding of where we're at in the process. Today's vote doesn't change our course of action - but it does set things in motion. It is expected that the petition period will open March 17th and we'll be ready with petitions ready to be signed! Be sure to enter your contact information below or check back to this site for more information about signing the petition as the date gets nearer.

March 1, 2024

In December of 2023, the Emporia City Commission voted to approve Resolution 3716, "authorizing City Staff to Publish Notice of Proposed Transfer of Public Park Property to the Emporia Land Bank."  If the transfer is complete, the public park could be developed into three home sites. "The land bank will sell each lot to individual developers, and/or work to acquire resources to build the homes itself. At least one lot will be reserved for construction of a house by a local non-profit housing developer" - quoted from this letter. The initial petition period lapsed with little to no public input.

A resolution to extend the petition period will be on the agenda for the City Commission on March 6th, 2024. If the Commission agrees to extend the petition period, official notice must be published in the newspaper for two consecutive weeks. We expect the petition period to begin March 16th and end April 15th, 2024. If the petition process is successful, the City may not sell or transfer the Quaker Park property unless approved by a majority of voters at a regular or special election.

We have created this site to be a central source for news on this issue, action items, and to collect the contact information of people who are interested in saving the park!

Who We Are

We are a group of concerned citizens in Emporia. We recognize the value in preserving green spaces and want to make sure that this park is preserved as a valuable third place in our community. None of us have any financial stakes in this matter.