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| Riverbank Neighbors: Please help us by reading the Riverbank Rules below. Dare we say that this is mandatory reading? If you’ve been walking the path all your life, or if you are new, either way, as we work to prevent the spread of COVID-19, none of this is obvious. Please tell people about the new rules and firmly but gently ask them to follow them. Nobody should be afraid to walk the path. If we have more complaints we will have to close the path entirely for the rest of the stay at home order. In order to prevent the spread of COVID-19:-Only go to the riverpath if you are willing to wait your turn and go slow, yielding, and social distancing more than 6 feet (people on the path would prefer much more). If you have a dog, it must be well behaved and on a regular length leash. Important Details: -To prevent spread of the virus, it is vitally important not to enter the path unless you are certain you can social distance. Do not enter if there are aleady people coming your way, please yield to them. -To prevent destroying all the work Riverbank Neighbors have done, it is vitally important to stay on the path and not to create a situation where you might feel you need to step off the path because of overcrowding. -Lastly, Reigning in dogs: Dogs must be on a regular length leash. Don’t bring your dog on the path at all if your dog will growl and lunge at your neighbors. (that should go without saying, but sadly, it doesn’t). And please don’t get close enough to others that your dog might jump up on them (social distancing, good manners, being aware of others with possible health conditions). People who walk the path have written us describing reasons they need dog owners to be more thoughtful, sometimes giving reasons, like being unsteady and worrying a dog might knock them down, people recovering from cancer and barely being able to walk but being forced to deal with dogs jumping on them, people who’ve been bit in the past, and people with small children trying to avoid a bad situation. Sometimes its hard to empathize when your experience has been all good, but we need these rules to protect us because dog bites happen. Please help us to let people feel and be safe on the path again. And we also want to ask that you all keep our sisters and brothers at the Englewood Veterans Garden in your thoughts and hearts. Our friend and fellow garden organizer, Cordia Pugh tells us of multiple community members and relatives who have died of Covid or who are in the hospital. Their community has been hit hard. Our hearts go out to them. Cordia Pugh co-led the city-wide community gardening workshops with us. They are also a Neighborspace garden. Our friend, Robin Cline from Neighborspace told me this week that many in community gardens across the city have been hit hard by the virus, few gardens are being able to start tending their gardens. When the stay at home order is safe, and we can safely go visit, we will bring a gift from our gardens to theirs. If you would like to contribute, please let us know. Many thanks to all of you for your thoughtfulness, for writing to us, for your sign making, for the gardening and riverbank work. A quick note here to acknowledge that many have been out working on the riverbank this week, repairing wall, planting, making fences, making signs- especially of note this week: Felix, Jeremy, Mike M, Inger, Holly S, Elizabeth G-B and family, and, of course, Pete. – all with masks and proper Covid safety protocol. Thanks to all. Be safe and have a beautiful day. -Jules (rules co-written with Pete Leki) |