Caffeinated Politics

My husband James and I had the pleasure of meeting a pair of Madison’s young park rangers Sunday afternoon at B.B. Clarke Beach. They were working to repair the end of a drain system leading from the water’s edge to the lake. When too much verbal angst is tossed about concerning public employees, I wanted to use this space to highlight their hard work and the spirited personalities they bring to the community.

Living on a busy section of the isthmus means encountering people daily, and truth be told, I am not the best at storing new names after a first meeting into the lockbox of my memory. But I can say one was a tall, handsome fellow born here in Madison but raised in the UK, as evidenced by his truly wonderful accent, and the young lady with him was equally pleasant and grew up in Verona. Later, James and I said both seemed destined for social work of some variety because of their care and compassion for the homeless population in the city, and the number of those individuals they encounter in the park system daily.

We were shocked to learn how much of their work involves the unhoused in the city, and how much that volume has grown over the past two years. By the end of this year, they will have contact with over 1,000 homeless people in their jobs. We are grateful to them for their work in the parks of our city, along with the other rangers who operate the department 365 days a year. I see a ranger come by our park most summer days and often in the late evenings, too.

James and I, as people who love the parks of the city and who understand how much the homeless population puts a demand on people like the two fine rangers we met this weekend, advocate strongly to our city officials and the mayor’s office to secure funding so that people like the two rangers we met could be kept on a more full-time basis with proper wages and compensation. They might even benefit from business cards with their names on them so people like me can remember them for a public comment like this.

We appreciate all that the park rangers do for the city.