Jacksonville leaders delay deadline to remove Murray Hill playground fence

JACKSONVILLE, Fla — A fence built by Duval County’s School District around the Murray Hill playground is still standing, just days before the city’s original deadline to take it down.

Action News Jax told you back in July DCPS started locking the playground during the school day, even though it’s owned by the city and paid for by taxpayers. And in the city’s agreement with the school district to use the park, it never gave express permission to lock it up, though it did allow for a fence to be built.

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It’s leaving neighbors like Jose “Junior” Lazcano on the fence.

“It was a waste of money, it’s been a waste of time and it’s insulting to the locals of this neighborhood,” Lazcano says.

Lazcano moved to Murray Hill back in 2013, now considering himself to be one of the playground’s strongest advocates. When he says he helped the city get $250,000 together for the park’s newer equipment, the fence built by DCPS was never in mind.

“They finally get [the new equipment] built and [the playground] is locked off to the general public and that infuriated me, it still does,” says Lazcano.

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The park is right across the street from Ruth N. Upson Elementary School. After DCPS started locking up the playground during the school day for safety reasons, some neighbors say the fence it built around Murray Hill playground shouldn’t have been built.

“Literally the fence has no purpose other than to make it inconvenient for the people of the neighborhood,” Lazcano says.

Back in August, city councilman Jimmy Peluso, who oversees Murray Hill, put out a memo saying the fence would be brought down by the end of December.

Today, just days away from the January 1st deadline, it is still up.

Peluso’s August memo says the city and DCPS agreed to build a new playground at Ruth Upson Elementary as the fence around the Murray Hill playground was brought down. It added the fence would be taken down if the school’s new playground was finished before January. But this was months ago, and there’s still nothing built at the site of the new playground.

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Today, when Peluso was asked when the city planned to take down the fence, he stated the deadline has been pushed back to January 8, the start of the spring semester for DCPS.

But some neighbors, like Lazcano, aren’t optimistic the fence will come down or the new playground will come up anytime soon.

“I hope I’m wrong,” says Lazcano, “I hope the fence does come down before January, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. It just doesn’t.”

Right now, the fence at the playground is unlocked with DCPS being on winter break. We reached out to the school district to see when the new playground at Ruth Upson Elementary could be finished, but we’re still waiting to hear back.

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