In another step toward recognizing Aberdeen’s most widely known former resident, the city council at Wednesday night’s meeting voted to include Cobain Landing in the city’s official park inventory.
The park, which was initially constructed and maintained by private volunteers in Cobain’s old neighborhood, honors Nirvana frontman and Aberdeen native Kurt Cobain, and unofficially came to be in 2011 under the direction of Tori Kovach, a long-time outspoken advocate for community recognition of Cobain’s accomplishments. Though the city, which owns the land, did not sanction the park’s dedication to Cobain, Kovach, who lived adjacent to the park, has maintained it since it was established.
Kovach recently moved to Raymond, said Karl Harris, director of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department. Since then, the city has been maintaining the park.
Adopting the park, requested in a report to the council from the city’s park board, garnered support from most council members, with Ward 3’s Jeff Cook, and Kathi Hoder of Ward 5 speaking in support of the tourism draw the former Nirvana front man’s legacy has given the area.
Ward 2 Councilwoman Alice Phelps did not agree.
“If we add another one, it’s just going to be way too much more work for people to do,” Phelps said, adding that the park also poses a safety concern with its proximity to the river.
Harris said the department could afford the manpower to maintain the park, and has been doing so anyway since Kovach left.
“We wanted to have control over what is done there in the future,” he told the council, adding that obtaining the park gives the city certain benefits, like applying for grants to improve it. “Otherwise, it would just be in no-man’s land, and we thought that we would go ahead and step up and take care of it.”
Though Phelps said she planned to vote against adopting the report, there were no “nays” on the voice vote. Council President Pete Schave and council members Jerry Mills and Doug Paling were absent.
Cobain immortalized the park in Nirvana’s song “Something in the Way,” which he wrote about his time spent underneath the Young Street Bridge adjacent to the park.
