I hope that someday soon, that we as a community think of playgrounds before drugs. RIght now, though, Santa Fe doesn’t understand that there’s no such thing as safe meth and fentanyl use. Yet, used needle containers seem to take priority and town hall meetings convene to discuss these scourges. Playgrounds and schools, however, don’t get much attention.

We need to change perspectives. Yes, our unhoused population is growing and with it, so is the use of meth and fentanyl. But if we could be honest with ourselves and realize that we simply cannot support this population. What we can do, however, is turn our attention towards are existing parks and schools and discuss ways and means that we can improve their functions. We have facilities that we have allowed to become run down versions of their previous selves. Our parks are veritable weed gardens and, sadly, our school playgrounds seem more like gravel gardens than places where our kids can laugh and play without dodging rocks and groundhog holes.

I, for one, am dong all I can to bring attention to the messes we’ve created in hopes that our parks, playgrounds, and schools become first in our minds. We seem to have become blind to their purposes and instead gather about the next stupid homeless shelter propping up in our neighborhoods. There is no way our community has the resources to “fix” the unhoused problem. We cannot save those whose brains are lost to microstrokes. Santa Fe is a community in which our elected officials seem to run by ego and not through common good. We need to change that. I, for one, am starting right now and will not stop until all the breath in my lungs is gone.