Independence Park Reopens After Securing Grant
By Jennifer Halley, the West Side Newspaper
Riverview Park in Independence has reopened after the city received a $30,000 grant from Friends of Community Parks.
On August 24, fencing went up around all parks across the city, closing them off to the public due to insufficient funding, which immediately halted the weekly farmer’s market, music shows, movies in the park, and any other activities that had been planned for the duration of the year.
With the grant in place, Riverview Park and the landing trails loop behind the Independence Hotel were reopened until December 31. All other parks in the city, including the dog park, Mt. Fir Park, Sunset Meadows Park and Pfaff Park remain closed.
Friends of Community Parks (FCP), a nonprofit dedicated to supporting and enhancing the public parks and recreational areas of Independence and Monmouth, originally convened in October 2025 to take over the annual Fourth of July festival when the city became unable to finance it.
“There are so many costs that come with [the festival], and no one was ready to take that on,” said Board Vice President Dusty Wimer. “So we all came together as a group to see what our mission is beyond the festival, and that would be to support our parks.”
The park closures have sparked division across Independence’s 10,000 residents, but the city’s financial crisis goes years back. In 2024, an operating levy that would have raised over $1 million annually for the parks, library and museum was rejected by 60% of city voters. The rejection led to the city convening a Citizens Committee that recommended adopting a $20-per-month utility customer fee. This created debate amongst residents, and a referendum effort was led by former city manager Greg Ellis, who held that position from 2000 to 2010, who said he wanted people to have their say.
That referendum effort qualified for the ballot earlier this month, suspending the utility fee before the city was able to collect any money from it.
When the parks closed, followed by the museum shuttering a few days later, Wimer said she hated what was happening. She has a lot of wonderful memories there. She met her husband at Riverview Park. She became engaged there, and hosted her wedding there.
“In August, when we learned that the referendum might qualify for the November election, we came together as a board asking what we could do, how do we best support our community?” Wimer said. “But we couldn’t finalize anything until the ballot measure qualified and the city could figure out its budgeting information, like, ‘what is the cost per month to run the parks.’”
In other words, their hands were tied. Wimer likened the situation to how a credit card operates: only when the debt lands can the company finally step in and help.
On August 23, the FCP Board voted to approve the amount and terms of the grant late into the evening. FCP President, Susan Graham, was on a family vacation as she typed up the grant to send over to the City Manager’s office.
“We are looking for ways to get other parks open,” said Wimer. “We’re trying to work with the city to make those decisions happen.”
Board Member Vidal Pena added, “It’s important to remember that none of this would have been possible without the sponsors, community members and visitors that came to support the Independence Days festival. That community support has allowed us to give back in this way.”
Salem Rowing Club (SRC), which operates out of Riverview Park, got word on August 22 that they would no longer be able to enter the park or their boathouse, the red barn at the edge of the bike-in campground. They spent the following day moving out their fleet of boats and evacuating the space of all personal items while scrambling to figure out where and how to hold weekly practice.
“Our members paid fees to be here, and to practice on a regular basis,” said club board member and coach Jen Shroyer. “So we felt obligated to find a solution for them.”
The team was able to secure temporary access to a private location a few miles south of Independence, and made plans to row at Wallace Marine Park as well. The team boats stayed on hauling trailers so they could be accessed easily.
In an all-team e-mail on August 23, Shroyer said, “we don’t know when or if we’ll be able to return to our old location. However, our spirit lives on and practice will go mostly as scheduled.”
When Natalie Jennings, who lives in West Salem and founded SRC in 2011, found out about the grant that reopened the park and allowed them to move back into the boathouse, she was relieved.
“It was great to see the park come alive again, not just for us, but for the whole community,” she said.
Shroyer expressed elation, but also frustration that something couldn’t have been worked out before the deadline, and before the team had to move all their equipment out.
In a press release from city Mayor Kate Schwarzler, she said that the city’s general fund, which pays for police, parks, the library, museums, and other everyday services, was spending more each year than it was bringing in, and instead of fixing that structural imbalance, previous city leadership used transfers and loans from other departments to cover the gap.
“The city has discussed its structural deficit publicly for years,” she said. “I understand that not everyone follows city government closely, but there comes a point where civic engagement also requires some responsibility from residents.
“This is not a retaliation,” Schwarzler added. “This is not a stunt. It is what happens when budgeted revenue becomes largely unavailable and there is no remaining General Fund to replace it.”
Ultimately, the residents of Independence will decide whether the parks will get to reopen when they go to vote in November.