PORT ANGELES — David Mabrey kept the play in playground.
Tiny, city-owned Georgiana Park was on life support until Mabrey, who maintains the park as a volunteer, initiated a joint effort with the Olympic Medical Center hospital district, the OMC Foundation and city officials to keep it whole.
The half-acre oasis of respite at 1006 East Georgiana St., just two blocks south of the hospital at 939 Caroline St., has drawn neighborhood families and OMC visitors to its welcoming lawn and playground equipment for 24 years.
But the unsafe, obsolete childrens slide, tire toys and monkey bars, destined for removal in 2017, would have left bare ground in their wake if not for Mabrey and his efforts, said Corey Delikat, city Parks and Recreation director, last week.
Mabrey spearheaded a drive to raise $148,000 in funding and in-kind labor to buy new, Americans-with-Disabilities-Act-compliant playground pieces and a wheelchair-friendly surface for the play area.
“He led the project,” said Delikat, adding the city does not have the funds to replace playground equipment.
“It was in danger of having to remove the playground without having anything to replace it,” Delikat said.
The equipment will be installed in 2017. The result will be a look similar to state-of-the-art Shane Park.
Mabrey’s personal connection: He mows and maintains the park year-round with his wife, Kristan, and their 5-year-old son, Roland.
“This was the right time to do this,” Mabrey said last week.
“It came down to, I was just a person who lives in that neighborhood.”
Last summer Mabrey asked the Port Angeles City Council to partner with the hospital district to save the playground.
OMC was embarking on a $16.35 million expansion project that will be completed this fall and needed city approval for a street vacation.
Mabrey was worried OMC might want to set its sights on what would have been a vacant, sun-baked field and turn it into additional parking.
He would learn new parking was not part of OMC’s plans.
He did some research on Shane Park before embarking on his own plan to save the Georgiana Park’s essence.
Mabrey, who does delivery and sales for The Quarry, a Port Angeles hardscape and masonry products company, thought he’d have a word with Eric Lewis, Olympic Medical Center’s CEO.
“I walked up to Eric Lewis, and I said, ‘I need you to put up $150,000 for the park at Georgiana Street,’ and he said, ‘That’s a great idea,’” Mabrey recalled.
Delikat and City Manager Dan McKeen met with Lewis at then-Mayor Dan Di Guilio’s direction, Delikat said.
Their talks resulted in a proposed interlocal agreement with Olympic Medical Center that will be discussed Tuesday by the City Council at its regular meeting at 6 p.m. at City Hall.
The agreement, already unanimously approved by OMC commissioners, allows the city to accept funding to purchase the Playcraft Systems equipment in return for maintaining it for its lifetime, to benefit OMC patients, including the poor and infirm, and to “offer an inclusive and accessible community park to local residents and visitors.”
Under the pact, the city to accept funds for the project from OMC, which pitched in $69,000, and includes $46,000 in city money for labor for playground installation.
The agreement also includes $20,000 from the Quinn Redlin Kintner Endowment for Accessibility, administered by the Olympic Medical Center Foundation and intended to enhance the lives of people with disabilities.
The gift was announced July 20 at an OMC commissioners meeting.
“We knew the playground was probably going to be shut down because of unsafe equipment, and we did not really want that,” Lewis said last week.
“This playground is very unique because it focuses on access from wheelchairs.
“It focuses on all ages and abilities.
“It’s got some very unique features to allow it to really service a broad range of ages.”
Keeping the playground enriches neighborhood residents and those who visit the hospital, Lewis said.
“We have people who deliver babies, and sisters and brothers come here, and it’s all really nice for employees.
“Hospitals can be very stressful, so having a place to play is good.”
Another $13,000 is needed to bring the total raised for the playground equipment to the necessary $148,000.
“I don’t see that as a problem,” Lewis said, adding that the foundation should be able to raise the amount.
The Quinn Redlin Kintner Endowment gift was announced at the July 20 hospital commissioners’ meeting by the foundation and Redlin Kintner’s parents, Kelsy Redlin and Bill Kintner.
Kintner was a 20-year-old woman who was disabled who died in 2010 from complications of pneumonia.
Shane Park’s wheelchair-accessible features were inspired by a senior project that she did on accessibility in city parks.
“This is exactly the kind of project that Quinn would have loved,” Redlin said at the hospital commissioners meeting.
She was honored at a 2008 City Council meeting recalled last week by Delikat, who got to know her when she interviewed him for her senior report.
“It was a packed house,” Delikat said.
“There were bigwigs from government there, and everybody gave her a standing ovation.
“It was probably the most special council meeting I’ve ever been to or will ever go to.”
Mabrey said Friday he felt a kinship with Kintner.
“Inclusive is the word I held onto through the entire process of this park,” he said.
“Hers was just basically, nothing stops me, and if I see something wrong in the world, I’m not afraid to say something about it.
“It’s just that tenacity of being able to walk up and say, ‘Hey, what’s going on here. I can help with this.’
“We are all on the same page.”
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.