11-year-old complains to City Hall and gets to design a better playground
Sep 24, 2024, 6:55 PM | Updated: 7:14 pm
CLEARFIELD — Some people say you can’t fight city hall, but an 11-year-old in Clearfield did, and won.
Not an actual fight, but an example of speaking up rather than stewing silently in disagreement.
11-year-old Rosili Olsen helped design a new playground, and it’s here because of something in her neighborhood she didn’t agree with.
You might say that Tuesday was a big day. A day when a community came out to see a finished project, the work of a now 12-year-old.
“It feels amazing,” Olsen said. “It’s crazy!”
A year ago, Olsen started a journey that began with a simple question. A complaint, really, after she saw the designs for the playground near her home.
“And Rosili’s first response to that was, ‘That’ll be really hard for my sisters to play on,’ because it was a lot of rope climbers and things like that, which for a two to five-year-old, is a lot trickier,” Eric Howes, Clearfield City’s community service director, told KSL TV.
Howes said Olsen came with her concerns and her own plan, in crayon.
“And that can be scary,” Howes said. “I don’t think most of us like to work with government agencies too much.”
It was already too late to change the local playground, but why not loop her in on another new one? Olsen made more drawings, more specifications. They came together and made something.
“It’s a really cool playground,” Olsen said. “And, How do I say it? Just really cool.”
The playground turned out a lot better than any private gripe or complaint could do. It became something cool that a lot of people can enjoy, and a story, she said, she may share for a while down the road.
“It means a lot. And now I can, when I’m older, I can tell my boyfriends.”
Olsen could tell them that when you fight city hall, sometimes, you win.
“She saw something she didn’t like. And rather than just complaining and writing a nasty social media post, she said, ‘I’m going to do something.’ And she did,” Howes said.
The new playground is at Bicentennial Park, north of Clearfield High School.
