VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WVEC) -- Residents in Aragona Village are fighting to preserve an old park that could be abandoned by the city.
Aragona Village Civic League President Lorraine Samko recently received an email from Virginia Beach Parks & Recreation, stating that it is in the best interest of the city to remove its park equipment and vacate the property.
"It concerned us on many levels. We would be losing a park that our neighborhood uses, and it also concerned us with the lack of a plan to continue maintenance. Without knowing who the actual owner is, that park would become overgrown and there would be continued issues with that," she said.
Romney Lane Park is not only a place where many children play, it's a place that carries historical significance. A fenced in cemetery lies in the middle of the park, with the headstone of a veteran. Allison Bell is an Aragona Village Civic League member who takes particular interest in the preservation of cemeteries. Through her own research, she discovered the grave belongs to Littleton Waller Tazewell Land who passed away in 1908.
"He enlisted in Petersburg as part of the local army here. He was married twice and had a few children," she said.
Allison discovered that there may be roughly 12-14 more people who were buried at Romney Lane Park. Their headstones are missing.
"In the 1960's there were headstones here for all these people, but then in the 1960's they came through and bulldozed all these headstones to the creek that's at the back of the property," she said.
The possibility of the park being abandoned is personal for veterans like Sara Perez Sanders. Sanders is a presiding officer for Aragona Village Civic League and has lived in the area for 15 years. She raised her kids in the neighborhood and brings her six children to Romney Lane Park to play.
"I am a U.S. Navy retired veteran of 20 years. My husband is a veteran. We have fought for our country, we have served, we have deployed. And to know that we have a veteran here and may be abandoned, it's not acceptable. Our cemetery here will be overgrown unless somebody steps up," she said.
According to Parks and Natural Area Coordinator Rick Rowe, while the city has been maintaining the park for many years, it does not have a title to the site, nor does it have a Use Agreement or Lease in place to use and maintain the site. The park is platted as a cemetery, and therefore, there are no tax records or payments to track the owner. "Aragona is one of the oldest and largest developments in Virginia Beach. The park has been a part of Aragona Village since nearly when the Village began back in 1956, by developer John Aragona. Many of our residents are second and even going on third generation Aragonas," Samko said.
Samko, Bell and Perez Sanders are working together to keep a piece of Aragona's history alive. They've been working to contact the living relatives of Littleton Land, dig deeper into the park's history and track down the owners of the park. Because of their efforts, the city has agreed to hold off on any action. It will continue to maintain the park until both sides can gather further documentation and come to a resolution.
"It's our local history. I believe that it's very important and respectful to those who have passed here so many years ago to make sure that they're memorialized-- make sure that people don't build a house on top of this property one day," Bell said.
