Laurie DeWitt/The Gazette Clair Garman of Takoma Park pours mulch around a tree trunk along Dale Avenue in the Sligo Creek corridor on Saturday.
The front window of Robert Harkins' home on Channing Drive in Wheaton looks out onto a shady, wooded grove that shelters one end of Sligo Creek. The view, framed by white lace curtains, looks like the type of scene that might bring a man some peace at the end of a long day or on a lazy Saturday.
Except it doesn't. On most days, Harkins said, if you look out that window long enough, you might see wandering into those woods a ballplayer from the nearby baseball diamonds or a walker taking a detour from the hiker-biker trail that begins on Channing Drive.
And there, right in front of his house, Harkins says, people answer nature's call.
"We can be out doing yard work, we can be out standing in the path talking to people, and some will just walk right out into the woods," Harkins said with a mix of disgust and disbelief. "I like to tell them they're standing in poison ivy."
Such is the life of a homeowner along Sligo Creek Park. On one hand, a verdant, easily accessible public paradise lies just barely beyond one's doorstep.
And on the other, well -- an easily accessible public paradise lurks just next door.
While most homeowners say that the benefits of living next to Sligo Creek Park's trails and trees far outweigh the annoyances, those adjacent to the park have to adjust to the fact that their front or back yard is virtually public property.
Trash, overuse or abuse of the park and public acts of thoughtlessness like the ones that happen in the woods in front of Harkins' home are some of the inconveniences facing the park's closest neighbors. As budget cuts have thinned resources at the county level, more neighbors are relying on themselves to keep their corner of the park looking the way they think it should.
Taking care of their park
Heavy rain kept most people off Sligo Creek's trails on Saturday, save for a small group of rain-slickered people cheerfully pushing wheelbarrows of mulch.
They were volunteers from Friends of Sligo Creek, a non-profit activist group made up of residents of the Sligo Creek area. Since its inception nearly three years ago, the group has worked to maintain the ecology and atmosphere of the park in their backyard.
For residents, investing the time to keep the park clean is more than just picking up trash. It sends a message to future visitors about how the park should be treated, said Ed Murtagh, an event coordinator with Friends of Sligo Creek who lives on Channing Drive.
"If the park is trashed, that's how people are going to treat it," Murtagh said, likening the presence of trash to the "broken window syndrome," in which evidence of neglect invites further vandalism.
"If you take pride in the neighborhood, people tend to treat the park better," he said.
While many residents say that park officials are responsive to their concerns about park abuses like trash and public urination, most also said that the county can't keep up with the demands of maintaining Sligo Creek Park.
"Without the volunteers, they couldn't keep it up. The parks just can't do it on their own, as far as I'm concerned," Murtagh said.
Leaning on the volunteers
More than 5,000 volunteers contribute about 50,000 hours of volunteer service in Montgomery County parks each year, said Jayne Hench, volunteer services coordinator for the Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission.
As budget constraints have forced Park and Planning to trim services, county officials are relying more upon volunteers to help.
"We're doing our best to provide the same service we've always provided, and it's becoming a greater and greater challenge," Hench said. "We need community volunteers to help maintain their parks."
There have "most definitely" been cuts in park maintenance over the past few years, said Martin Aument, park manager for Wheaton area parks, noting that volunteers have become more necessary for maintenance details like creek sweeps and trash pick-up.
A huge chunk of the parks' budget goes toward trash removal and maintenance. Park and Planning spent $3.3 million to collect 2,450 tons of trash and 1,250 tons of recyclable materials from county parks in 2002, according to a report prepared by Park and Planning.
In an attempt to whittle down that figure, the County Council asked Park and Planning last year to implement a program encouraging park users to carry away their own trash, as is done in many state and national parks.
In September, park maintenance removed all trash cans from Sligo Creek Park, with the exception of a few at the athletic fields. Kiosks with plastic trash bags were installed.
The plan has drawn mixed reviews from residents and county officials, who say that the efficacy of the program will not be known until after the peak-use summer months.
Eliminating the trash cans saves valuable labor time and equipment, Aument said.
Some residents were skeptical that the program would work for Sligo Creek.
"It's certainly praiseworthy to try to save tax money where it makes sense, but I feel like our park, which is used by so many people, is quite different from state and national parks," said Sally Gagne, president of Friends of Sligo Creek.
But Harkins was more blunt about his expectations.
"That's something that's wonderful in theory, but it's not something that works," he said.
Despite the occasional complaint, most residents said there's no substitute for living so close to a natural refuge in the midst of the suburban jungle.
"You're more connected to nature," said resident Jean Cavanaugh. "We can just cross Sligo Creek Parkway and be in the middle of the leaves changing color, the dogwood coming out, the birds coming and going."
Litter "is annoying, [but] it doesn't really bother me that much because I think the park should be used," Cavanaugh said.
Many residents say that they just want to see the park treated well.
"I want people that don't live in this neighborhood to respect this neighborhood," Harkins said. "This is my little piece of Montgomery County, and I want to see it clean."