Saugus group rallies around town playgrounds

SAUGUS – It’s time for a kid’s-eye view of the shortcomings and safety problems in the town’s parks and playgrounds, said members of a newly formed improvement group.Friends of Saugus Parks and Playgrounds want to find ways to make short-term improvements to local open space and play areas, and raise money for longer-term improvements, including providing more access to local playgrounds for children with disabilities.”We have an awesome group that is going to get a lot done,” said Friends member Marc Magliozzi. “We want playgrounds that all kids can be comfortable in.”The group has a Facebook site with more than 500 likes, according to member Mark Andrews, and Friends held its first organizational meeting last Wednesday after Andrews and Magliozzi briefed the Board of Selectmen on the group’s goals. The pair told selectmen Friends wants to help provide Saugus with “safe, clean, updated parks.” “This is fabulous what you folks are doing,” board chairman Ellen Faiella told the pair.Andrews said he has been interested in park improvements since 2009, when he compiled a list of needed equipment upgrades and safety improvements in playgrounds across Saugus. The list includes, he said, a piece of equipment missing from the Anna Parker playground “glider” – a piece of play equipment designed so that children can hold onto a bar suspended from a roughly 10-foot-long rail and slide from one platform to another.”I’ll buy the piece if they let me put it in,” Andrews said.Jennifer Leonard said she takes her 7-year-old daughter to a playground in Peabody where, she said, there is easier wheelchair access to play equipment compared to town playgrounds. Group members said local playgrounds need new slides as well as repairs to play equipment and improvements around climbing areas children enjoy.”When you get in a playground with a kid, you really see where the defects lie,” Magliozzi said.Group members also include Mark Mitchell, Julie Mitchell (no relation), Dennis Gould and Phil Rando, chairman of the Saugus Youth and Recreation Commission. Rando said the commission has done its own park assessments and found equipment “in deplorable condition.””Our board has identified parks and playgrounds as an issue for a very long time,” Rando said.Magliozzi said his interest in helping to form Friends stems from a playground injury his daughter, Sabrina, 7, sustained last October. The child was not seriously hurt when she fell through a play structure, he said.Andrews said Friends is planning fundraising efforts and a spring parks cleanup.”Our plan is to immediately fix the broken stuff,” Andrews said.