Bayside Police and NSFD Say Doctors Park is a Public Safety Issue

When a man called 911 for help from the beach over the holiday weekend, first responders found they could not get vehicles down the washed-out, rubble-strewn path, delaying their ability to provide service.

The eventually brought the man up by hand. Though the man's situation was not life-threatening, police and paramedics say the park's condition is becoming a public safety hazard.

The only path to the beach has a four-foot wide gap from the floods last July, and the concrete part of the path was strewn with stumps and branches that had washed over the drive, severely delaying the arrival of emergency crews.

"We had to pull the wood off so we could get an ambulance through," Chief Bruce Resnick said. "It creates a public safety issue because that’s our access point to get people off the beach. The longer it takes us to do our job, it can be detrimental to the health and welfare of the people we're trying to protect."

Resnick said there was so much debris, the police department tried to use an all-terrain vehicle to get down to the beach, but by the time they got there, NSFD had carried the man out by hand.

"It’s frustrating to me that it’s not maintained to at least a minimum level to keep it safe," Resnick said. "We can’t get down there because the path to the beach is washed out. It’s a disaster."

Residents staying away from park

However, this is isn't the only illustration of the disrepair Doctors Park has fallen into. Residents and local officials say something needs to be done.

“It’s difficult getting to the beach," Carla Coonan, a Bayside resident, said. "With a stroller, going up and down the stairs is safer than the path."

In addition to the path, the parking lot is a major concern for many residents. What once was a smooth, asphalt lot is now riddled with massive, gaping holes. These holes are filled with broken pieces of asphalt, almost like gravel, except the pieces are nearly golf ball-sized making it tough to push strollers through.

Chuck Mickschel of Glendale says the park is so bad, his family rarely even goes there anymore. “We don’t go down there much because it is so unkempt," he says. "It’s been this way for years."

Milwaukee County Supervisor Joe Rice says he's received complaints from residents about the lack of care given to the park, and he has some of the same concerns.

"We in the North Shore, we pay a lot of property taxes to Milwaukee County and we’re not a high consumer of services," Rice said. "With the budgets being what they are in the county, they’re finally getting around to prioritizing this."

Guy Smith of the Milwaukee County Parks Department says that the county will spend $480,000 to repave the parking lot, improve signage and review stormwater drainage issues. The county also has money coming from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to repair some of the flood damage, but that dollar amount remains unconfirmed.

Smith says work on the park is scheduled to begin in September.