Rocks appear on field at Roundtree Park
Why is the soccer field at Roundtree Park covered with at least a hundred rocks? Park visitors had some ideas: Maybe it’s an alien landing strip, one person jokingly suggested. Or something to do with a mystical ceremony?
A nearby neighbor walking her dogs had an answer. She was at Roundtree Park on Dec. 30 and 31, when she saw an excavator and three trucks full of rocks on the field. Workers were placing the rocks about six feet from one another.
A worker told the dogwalker it’s a Park Authority project to prevent people from using the soccer field. He said the reason is because the players were leaving too much trash behind.
“It’s so upsetting,” the dog walker said. “I like to watch the children playing and having fun. Where are they going to go? This is exclusionary. This is a soccer-playing community.”
The baseball backstop, trash can, and bleachers have already been removed. With rocks all over the field, the Park Authority will no longer be able to mow it. Presumably, the field will be overgrown like the area near where the backstop used to be.
Who is running the park authority? They have made nothing but horrible and wasteful decisions for years. From pickleball fiascos to rocks in this field because of …trash?
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors (BOS) created the Fairfax County Park Authority. A 12-member citizen board, appointed by the Fairfax County BOS runs the Park Authority to make decisions concerning land acquisition, park development and park operations in Fairfax County, Virginia. Think of the Park Authority as putting a veneer of separation between the BOS and park decisions. Maybe our Mason District Supervisor Andres F. Jimenez has learned from the pickle ball fiasco how to handle the park authority since it now impacts soccer and the large Hispanic population of soccer players in the district (there are not enough fields for the number of players). Of course he could still be busy pandering to others with street renaming and dodging holding the park authority accountable to the BOS. Great work passing the proverbial buck Supervisor Andres Jimenez. I’ve seen other countries and counties with less resources than Fairfax county be operated more efficiently, effectively and transparently. Vote wisely and let’s put some competent people on the BOS.
The rocks are gone.! I walked there at 9:30 this morning and there was a Bobcat pushing them off the field.
Possibly the least useful way to deal with trash.
I am confused by this. What is the point in having a park with a field if they make it unusable? Maybe we shouldd have a community initiative to have volunteers to clean up the trash. This is just wrong. I didn’t use the field myself but I am a taxpayer.
Well, the people that frequent that area need to clean up after themselves. Generally every friday afternoon has a multitude of folks down in that area. Start by initializing them.
This is horrible, why are our tax dollars going to maintaining parks when they are preventing us from using it and foregoing any maintenance?
This is a very odd “solution” to the trash problem and a great way to get a big field filled with invasives. What’s the long-term plan? If it will no longer be maintained with mowing, could we restore the habitat?
Absolutely absurd. So communities are not allowed to play pickleball in their own parks, kids can’t use soccer fields, and Park volunteers are being treated like criminals. It’s time for a new head of the Park authority!
You people are so dense. And who is so bored that they write an entire article instead of reaching out to the proper spokesperson for the county about it? The second you see the Park Authority doing something you throw out your taxpayer card and then the news LIES to the taxpayers!! HILARIOUS!
A DIY trash receptacle? That’s full of beer cans?! Public intoxication is ok but avoiding trash from lazy citizens isn’t?! All the volunteers preaching in the comments but never once show up to a clean up hosted by the Park!
I’m sure the Park Authority has other plans for this that’s why it was put into place. Why not find out before stiring up drama in the community.
No, they were pretty spot on. I previously reached out to the park authority on why they weren’t maintaining the field. They wrote:
“The decision to remove the athletic fields at Roundtree Park was made after a long period of observation and growing challenges with both maintenance and community impact. The rectangular field was closed approximately five years ago due to persistent issues, including illegal activity, unauthorized food sales, alcohol use, and general misuse that made it unsafe and unsustainable. The diamond field followed about two years ago, primarily due to similar concerns and its failure to meet safety standards for organized play.
Both fields were located out of direct view from the rest of the park which made them difficult to monitor and manage. In addition to the misuse, parking demand regularly exceeded capacity. This led to frequent complaints from nearby residents about overflow parking in the surrounding neighborhood.”
Seems like they are going out of their way make it unusable. As many commented, there had to be a better solution.
You’re telling me FCPA has a board of supervisors and they thought having parkland be unusable is a good thing? How much money are they getting from the data center that is going to buy the unused land?
This is straight up insane. Why is this the solution to trash on the field? It’s targeting the exclusion of certain people from being able to use the field which reeks of racism. Parks are for the people, all the people in the community. Work on the trash problem a different way.
It’s the Roundtree Park Creeper I tell ye! I’d be glad to connect some of these rocks, despite the obvious curse.
So based on the photos, it doesn’t look like there’s a single trash can anywhere around the field. Perhaps the FCPA could try installing some trash cans as a better way to reduce littering.
This seems like a ridiculous solution to a problem with trash. How about providing trash cans, talking with community leaders, posting signs, monitoring the filed occasionally? There are lots of things that could solve this problem without putting rocks on a soccer field. It sounds like mean people run the park service.
Fairfax County hates the people of Mason District and treats us like trash. Example number 10,781.
Another example of Jai Cole’s poor leadership and the park authority board doing nothing to stop her terrible decisions. How about more trash cans as a reasonable first step or as someone mentioned a community cleanup day. What happens when it snows and kids are dodging rocks on their sleds? Jai Cole is simply a bad leader unfit for her position.
How much did all of the rocks cost and how much did the labor to place the rocks cost the park authority?
Whoa that’s way too close to the sledding hill. Lawsuit waiting to happen. Who do we complain to?
Well. Now the field is a great spot to deposit trash since it can’t be used for anything else…
If you want people to clean up after themselves, you need to educate them and put up trash bins, not litter the field with stones. That’s just idiotic.
Why is someone who hates people using public parks in charge of the park authority? This is a sick joke. Maybe Jai should take a ride down the hill on sled with all those rocks there and hope for the best. If you don’t like your job and aren’t good at it step away. You’ll be doing us all a great service.
Kids are pushing those rocks down the steep hill towards each other and dodging them like it’s a game. Someone is going to get hurt or killed and I hope Jai Cole is found liable.
If a kid can push one of those rocks up the hill then back down they need to be on the news. You are aware machines were needed to bring them in and remove them right you’re literally just talking
Who said the kids were pushing the rocks up the hill?
I watched the kids tag-teaming one boulder at a time and pushing them DOWN the hill that faces the turn in the path just before the incline to the parking lot and the playground.
With about 100 rocks, there is no need to take them back up the hill, which they could not have done.
And I’m not literally talking, I’m literally writing. Good luck to you in navigating this big mean world.
yall are over here crying about rocks in a park. i think you need to prepare for the big mean world
Not rocks in a park, kids almost getting crushed by boulders because of local government stupidity. Is protecting children not a priority for you?
If you think it’s about rocks in the park, you are missing the whole story. Sorry that the world is big and mean to you.
Jimenez proved he doesn’t have his constituents back the last time Queen Cole took valuable space away from the community without warning and without input from stakeholders. How idiotic and lazy can someone be to come up with this solution. An issue with trash, yeah let’s just put boulders in the field that will solve that. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen and this type of situation is why vile leaders like the one we have in charge of our country get elected. Such a disservice to our community.
Apparently no one asked the nearby communities what they wanted or how to resolve the “trash problem.” the the person who made this incomprehensible and ignorant decision.
This is absolutely unbelievable. Who is responsible for appointments to the parks authority? I want them out of office, this is now the SECOND TIME they have decided to render a public space unusable rather than do their damn jobs.
Either they liquidate the parks authority and reconstitute it with people who actually give a damn about public spaces or we need to eject a lot of people from office till they realize this is a major problem.
For over 10 years, I’ve walked my dog in this park twice a day. I have seen the FAMILIES playing soccer and enjoying themselves. I’ve seen them bring their own lawn tractors to mow the grass fields. Occasionally, there’s a little trash left behind. So what? It’s trash not nuclear waste. Why not start with putting in a couple trash cans? Have an adopt-a-park clean up similar to ones along highways? For clarification, the picture in this article is NOT from soccer players but, from people who set off fireworks in the park as they do every New Year’s eve. That part of the park will now look as trashy as the adjacent soccer field that was deemed unusable by FAMILIES five years ago (I remember that dumb move as well). Other posters said this decision is exclusionary (the soccer FAMILIES are Hispanic). That’s where my mind went initially. Now, I think it’s plain old ineptitude. Government, at all levels, struggles to do anything well. This is just one more example and we tax payers get to fund their wasteful decision making.
The rocks are gone…..
Good. Glad there will be a small habitat for wildlife there.
So, they load up a truck full of rocks, drive it to the park, unload, and the distribute the. And, a week later, come back and pick them all up. Please tell me how much that cost the taxpayers?
The county put rocks on county property. The rocks are obviously a last step measure no one would have that be their first solution. Clearly its not just about trash, the county runs lots of other fields with trash cans and people who are paid to pick up trash. There is definitely more to this story. The problem with news today is its so one sided just to make people like you mad so that you’ll engage and make them more money.
Welcome to the neighborhood, Elliot! You must not have lived here long to think this was a last step measure to deal with trash. There is probably more to the story, and there is a history of the head of FCPA treating our neighborhood unfairly and making rash decisions that do not benefit anyone. That is why the reaction is strong.
The Park Authority, really?
I think these rocks were left as « erratics », as we geologists call them, when the glaciers formed by our last snowstorm retreated.