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Abigail Kramer

More than a dozen parents confronted Councilmembers Sara Gonzalez and Bill DeBlasio on Tuesday about long-overdue repairs to Slope Park in Windsor Terrace. Here, DeBlasio faced down his critics.

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Twenty angry parents let two City Councilmembers have it on Tuesday afternoon, accusing the lawmakers of breaking their promise to renovate an outdated, unattractive and unsafe Windsor Terrace playground.

Last year, Bill DeBlasio (D–Park Slope) and Sara Gonzalez (D–Sunset Park) said they supported the renovation of Slope Park, a schoolyard and playground at 18th Street and Sixth Avenue.

But nearly 12 months later, the playground is as rundown as ever, and there’s no renovation in sight.

“They said they’d make it a priority for the next city budget,” said Julie Milburn, who brings her 2-year-old grandson to the playground almost every day. “We were trusting that they’d follow through.”

A complete renovation would cost $1.7 million. Gonzalez said she had managed to secure one-third of the funding and that both she and DeBlasio were committed to seeking the rest of the money next year.

“This is a really tricky budget year,” said DeBlasio, who is running for borough president. “You bring in your wish list and try to bargain for the best for your community, but you don’t always get it.”

Neighborhood parents worry that the promises might evaporate in the face of a continued financial crunch.

“We’ve already been waiting for too long,” says Miguel Aguero, one of the main organizers of the renovation effort. “Our children need a better, safer place to play.”

Two of the playground’s three climbing structures were built more than 20 years ago, and they fall far short of current safety recommendations. One platform is over seven feet high, with no safe way down for younger kids — an apparent violation of Consumer Product Safety Commission height recommendations. Another structure has safety bars spaced so widely that small children can – and often do – walk right through them. Aguero said that he sees unnecessary accidents at the playground on a regular basis.

Over the past two years, neighborhood residents have taken many of the playground’s problems into their own hands, holding “do-it-yourself” improvement parties to plant flowers, hammer down rubber matting and repaint equipment.

But parents say they’ve come to the limit of what they can do on their own.

“We need to hold the city accountable for the safety of the children who play here,” said Gayle Foreman, who’s been bringing her daughter to Slope Park for three years. “We’ve learned that we can’t let up until the bulldozers are in the park.”

©2008 Community Newspaper Group