Editorial: Don’t endanger children

The mayor’s bravado over the Savage Park Splash Pad, as reported by WTVG-TV, Channel 13’s Alexis Means, made for some interesting news coverage last week.

Mayor Wade Kapszukiewicz vowed he would have the splash pad re-opened within a week, even if that puts him at odds with the Toledo-Lucas County Health Department, and even if it means he has to go to jail.

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If the mayor’s technical advisers believe the splash pad equipment is safe enough to be used, then it’s on them.

The problem is that the water pressure is too intense under a new law. Even though the splash pad has operated safely for two decades or more, suddenly the water pressure is not in compliance with a well-intended law passed by the Ohio General Assembly in December, 2022.

Makenna’s law was enacted in response to a situation in which 7-year-old Makenna Day was seriously injured after she was standing over a water feature when it activated. Makenna underwent surgery and many follow-up appointments after the incident.

Lucas County health inspectors wasted no time in going out to test the water pressure, and determined the Savage splash pad was not in compliance.

The mayor and his director of parks and recreation are not in a position legally to dispute the determination of the health department, not when there’s a possibility that a child could be injured.

It is unclear to us how the Health Department can believe that the water pressure is not in compliance but the city’s parks department believes that it is in compliance. Inspections done in May, 2023, found the spray from a nozzle went 10 feet high, while 6.2 feet is the legal maximum, the health department said.

According to the mayor, the breakdown in communication is the Health Department’s refusal to send an engineer to check the system and determine whether the pressure is within legal limits.

The law may have been enacted without sufficient consideration of the cost and difficulty of fixing, on very short notice, aging splash pads around the state. There could have been other solutions, such a warning signs not to place any part of one’s body in front of a nozzle.

That doesn’t change the fact that the administration was permitted to use the noncompliant splash pad for a year to fix the problem and it did not fix the problem.

Time’s a-wasting. The splash pad was shut down during a hot spell. Toledo needs its recreational facilities operating at full capacity. Instead, a treasured neighborhood outlet for youthful energy and fun is closed because of inattention.

As a result, the city has an angry community on its hands — one that has not hesitated to say that if a splash pad in an all-white neighborhood had failed it would not have been treated so lackadaisically.