For environmental activist Christine Sevilla, who was killed last week, the protection of MonroeCounty parks was a crucial issue. The day before her death, Sevilla e-mailed City an impassioned argument against proposed development plans for GreeceCanalPark. Members of the environmental community have asked that we publish it as a tribute to her.

Why is the county's Capital Improvement Program providing $2 million for Greece Canal Park? The next park scheduled for planning activity was widely thought to be Powder Mills Park, so this announcement was unexpected.

Our county and parks administration owe the public a fair and transparent assessment of resident needs and park resources. Instead, another public "input" meeting was announced just days ahead for a time when the fewest possible can attend: two days before Thanksgiving, just like last year's Ellison Master Plan meeting.

Attendees of the Greece Canal Park meeting were told about the $2 million available for park development and to just brainstorm about "what you think we should do with the park."

Some people said let's do nothing, don't waste money needlessly. At least do nothing harmful, like bisecting the park with a road. But meeting discussion was focused on "how should we spend this money?"

The idea of parks as places set aside, protected and unspoiled, is an unwelcome part of the discussion when money is available for development. The promise of money distracted from a healthy discussion of what is best for citizens of our county. Instead, attendees were led to create a myopic shopping list for the undefined $2 million: road/not road, speed bumps, lacrosse fields, other fields, camping amenities, boating improvements, sidewalks, bathrooms, ice rink, mountain biking trails, new hiking trails.

People thus became invested in a fragmented process, distracted by detail without a true view of the whole - a process that does no service to parks or park users. However, the park-by-park process, as Parks Director Staub says, is the traditional approach. Certainly attendees of such meetings understand there will be winners and losers when final decisions are revealed.

Where are the data captured in a brief, one-time brainstorming meeting, or on the lined paper labeled as a "Public Meeting Comment Form"? An objective, long-term, comprehensive assessment of the entire parks system, as Carmen Gumina and five other legislators recommended in May of this year, is needed. A thorough assessment would be based on data collected from all stakeholders, data that leaders are accountable to heed, data that all citizens have a right (duty) to review.

This now annual public input process, each time on a single park, serves to perpetuate the illusion of participation.

CHRISTINE SEVILLA, PERINTON