No Re-Opening in Sight for Crescent's Shouse Park

In a Monday editorial, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette looks at wrangling between Crescent Township officials and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

At the center of the dispute is Shouse Park, a municipal green that was shuttered one year ago because the hillside roadway leading up to it, , had . 

Township officials last year the road had begun to sink and slide downhill and posed a safety threat to park-goers and motorists. Duquesne Light in recent months on the road so residents do not lose power as a result of poles being pushed in the landslide. 

The park was closed in May 2011 and no re-opening date has yet been announced. The Crescent Board of Commissioners has discussed the and for it since the road's 2011 closure. Commissioners of the road repair to be an issue for the community. 

The P-G reports that the Army Corps of Engineers is poised to take over the road and repair it, in a project estimated to cost more than $250,000. The trade off: The Corps would have the ability to close the park while it performs a $3.1 million rehabilitation of the nearby Dashields Lock on the Ohio River. 

Crescent officials have bulked at the offer to close the park, which before its closure was frequently used for township functions and rented for parties. The Crescent Board of Commissioners rejected the Corps' project at its regular meeting last Tuesday in a unanimous vote

The Post-Gazette calls the move "absurd" in its editorial:  

For one small community to have, in effect, veto power over an urgently needed project is as absurd as a mouse stopping the progress of an elephant.

Click here to read the P-G's entire editorial. From the newspaper: 

Corps spokesman Jeff Hawk told the Post-Gazette, "We're beyond frustrated to stunned. We're done unless they make some extraordinary gesture." [Crescent] Township solicitor Richard F. Start replied: "If he is stunned and shocked, his stun and shock pales compared with ours."

So what do you think? Should Crescent hand the project to the Army Corps of Engineers? What would you think of Shouse Park being closed for indefinite periods of time while work is done on Dashields Lock? Have you missed use of the park since its closure last year?