Fairmount Park

FAIRMOUNT PARK is the nation's largest park system, with 9,200 acres. In 2008 it had a budget of $15 million, but by 2010 it was down to $11 million - which barely meets the park's most basic maintenance needs. And its budget situation just keeps getting worse. We need to think out of the box about how to fund the system into the future. The Fairmount Park Commission and other civic leaders have been looking for ways to generate more funding through other means, such as improved concessions.

A man with his hands and feet bound was found fatally shot in the head yesterday in a car parked along a tree-sheltered lane in Fairmount Park, police said. A passerby found the body of Carl C. McCall, 25, of South Philadelphia, around 1 p.m. in the 700 block of Hermit Lane, a small, quiet road that runs off of heavily traveled Henry Avenue. Evergreens grow thick along the lane, which is in Fairmount Park near the Walnut Lane Golf Club. Homicide Sgt. Johnny Johnson said that it was not known how long the body had been there before it was discovered, but that the victim was last seen alive about 7 p.m. Thursday night.

Fairmount Park officials will hold a series of public forums this week to hear what residents like and don't like about the 8,000 park acres spread across the city. The forums are being held in connection with the preparation of the park's first master plan in more than two decades. The views of city and park leaders have already been gathered and a series of focus groups has been held. Now, officials say, it is time to learn what the ordinary man and woman have to say. "This whole first phase of the [master plan]

Maybe we can blame the squirrels. After all, if they didn't eat all those acorns, lots of young oak trees might be growing all over Fairmount Park. Blaming squirrels for the decline of the park trees is, of course, ridiculous. Sure they eat acorns. They also gnaw through doors and wires to find shelter in rec centers during the winter. That's Mother Nature at work. Mankind's work doesn't last without maintenance, and all creatures die - even trees. Our challenge is to find ways to help Mother Nature along so Fairmount Park does not slowly die before our very eyes.

Come spring, there will be 40 young rangers in training in Fairmount Park, wearing uniforms, Smokey hats and smiles. Fresh from their botany and history courses at Temple University, they will stand eager to interpret the park's natural resources for visitors and to discourage abuse by vandals. "You're going to see them everywhere," promised ranger boss Peter Engbretson. "They're going to be the ambassadors for Fairmount Park. " The ranger corps, nothing more than a dream for park officials for several years, will be funded in its first five years by the William Penn Foundation and other private and public sources.

A CRIMINAL-COURT judge didn't believe James Harris when he claimed in 2007 that Philadelphia Police Officer Michael Paige forced him to perform oral sex on him in his police cruiser in Fairmount Park. But Wednesday, eight jurors did. In a three-day civil trial in federal court, a jury found Harris so believable that it declared Paige liable for violating Harris' civil rights and ordered Paige to pay Harris $165,000 in compensatory and punitive damages. The jury of four men and four women deliberated for five hours before deciding that Paige, 45, unlawfully detained Harris and subjected him to "invasions of his bodily integrity" in the March 16, 2007, incident in a remote pocket on the Belmont Plateau.

The 18-year-old Strawberry Mansion woman knew the 41-year-old man from the neighborhood. She didn't know Robert Hayward was a sex offender. It didn't take too long for her to find out last Sept. 11. Hayward, of Montgomery Avenue near 31st Street, wound up raping her after she agreed to take a ride into Fairmount Park with him, said Assistant District Attorney Leslie Keyes. This week, Common Pleas Judge Gregory E. Smith made Hayward pay for his violent crime. Smith sentenced him to 71/2 to 15 years in prison on charges of rape, sexual assault and related offenses.

Neighborhood residents say few places in this city are darker or more remote than Fairmount Park near 33d and Diamond Streets. "You can holler, you can shoot, you can do drugs and no one will hear you," said Denise Clark, a volunteer at the nearby Mander Community Center, in Strawberry Mansion. You can also, apparently, kill. Police found the body of a 28-year-old woman about 300 feet from that intersection yesterday morning. Kim Cook, of the 3200 block of Arlington Street, was found about 9 a.m. with one of her socks stuffed in her mouth and her hands tied behind her back with her shoelaces.

For a moment inside a memory, the 48-year-old is a boy again in the Richard Allen Homes and an admirer of an older boy, a 12th and Poplar Street gang member nicknamed Boo. "I tried to write 'Little Boo' on the walls, but he beat me up," says Muhammad Adil, smiling and nodding toward Warren "Boo" Summers, who is 57 now. "Gotta earn it," says Summers, with a trace of smile. They talk about how good the gang was and how bad, like brothers telling the tale of a bed they shared, lumpy some nights, soft on others.

Temple University has withdrawn its proposal to build a new boathouse along the Schuylkill after concerns were raised that the university was not providing replacement parkland as required by a city ordinance. Kenneth Lawrence Jr., a senior vice president at Temple, wrote in a letter Tuesday to Nancy Goldenberg, chair of the Parks and Recreation Commission, that the university was "not in a position to make a commitment" without further study of its options. At a January hearing, Temple was criticized for proposing to give the city $1.5 million to repair the East Park Canoe House, the university's former rowing home, instead of offering substitute green space for the now-withdrawn boathouse site near the Strawberry Mansion Bridge.