LETTER: Documents tell whole story of Albert-Oakland Park

I write in response to George Kennedy’s Columbia Missourian Opinion piece of Sept. 4-5. He notes that he spent two hours in our home and then gives a Freudian diagnosis that my husband is “obsessed.” Mr. Kennedy does not explain what should be the proper family response to the removal of the Albert name from a park that was the largest donation of park land in the 138-year history of Columbia at that time. He does not tell the reader the whole story of the documents presented to him. For example, Ray Beck’s e-mail ordering staff to change the name, or the inner office memo justifying his actions, or Resolution 24-72 and *Ordinance 47-72, both passed unanimously in 1972 stating, ”Columbia, Missouri is developing a public park facility to be known as the Albert-Oakland Park.” Ironically, Albert-Oakland Park is the only park in the history of the city to be named by both resolution and ordinance.