SANDPOINT, Idaho – Protests erupted on Monday as a group of passionate men and women tried desperately to make Sandpoint city leaders hear their voices, as they attempt to save a beloved park the city plans to tear down.
“It’s frustrating what they’re doing to our beautiful town,” Monica Gunter-Travers said.
Chanting, blow horns and car alarms could be heard down multiple blocks in Sandpoint as the week began, with multiple residents coming together to fight for a park they say needs to stay as it is.
Sandpoint City Council disagrees.
“It’s the fact that they’re taking this beautiful park and destroying it and putting a big building that could go any place in Sandpoint, any place,” Monica Gunter-Travers said.
In the 1940s, Travers Park was known as the private garbage collection service for subscribers within city limits. As ownership changed and the city obtained the land, in the 1970s city leaders decided the site would become a park.
On October 3, 1980 – city council voted to name the land Travers Park in honor of Frank Travers, who spent his life supporting youth sports across the community. He died earlier that year.
As part of an approved Parks and Recreation Master Plan in September 2020, and after recently receiving a $7.5 million gift from James A. Russell and Ginny Russel, the city plans to replace the park with an indoor pickleball and tennis court facility.
“It’s a fabulous donation by the Russell family, it just needs to not be planted in the middle of Travers Park,” the Travers children said. “Russell Park should be the place for the building, and we need to find a Russel Park. We’re a growing community.”
Aside from serving as a place to take your kids to play, enjoying the beautiful trees in bloom, Travers Park holds very special meaning for the family it was named after.
“Our father, our sister, and our grandmother – their ashes are spread inside where they’re going to put the building,” Gunter-Travers said.
Monica, alongside her sister Therese and John Travers, stood strong alongside the protesters on Monday, showing the city that the Travers are still living in the town they were raised in and the town they said goodbye to their father in.
“We’re all here,” the siblings said.
Not only is the memory of Frank Travers pulsing through Travers Park, but his ashes are also spread through the park’s soil after his family came together, with the city’s permission, for a memorial service years ago.
“We planted a tree and put the ashes in with the tree roots,” Gunter-Travers said.
The tree was sadly ripped down by kids years ago, but Travers’ ashes are still in the soil, along with a few other trees that mean something to another family.
“Five of the trees are in honor of a family that was killed on Lake Pend Orielle back in the 80s, and the city doesn’t care,” Gunter-Travers said.
Despite community uproar, city leaders held a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday for the new facility.
“They hid the groundbreaking from everybody that cared about this park, they put plastic up, they wrapped their tents where the groundbreaking was – we couldn’t see it,” Gunter-Travis said. “Groundbreakings are supposed to be happy, fun events.”
Yet, protesters said this event felt secretive, hidden from the public. City officials made a quick exit after breaking ground.
The chanting from protesters continued, coming from every side of the fence that surrounded the park. Among the side of opposition are even people who love to play pickleball and tennis – though, they too believe Travers Park is not the right location for the facility.
“We need more tennis courts, we need more pickleball courts, but we don’t need them to destroy this beautiful, wonderful park that people use,” Protester Nancy Schmidt said. “They needed to slow the process down, and the people are mad.”
And the Travers family wants their father’s memory kept alive, his support for Sandpoint remembered, his ashes untouched.
They said they plan to continue fighting for Travers Park, while the city said they plan to move forward with construction for the new facility; it’s expected to be completed by late 2024.
