When a public park lacks even a sign announcing itself as such, the public’s not getting its money’s worth.

But the case of T’Chookwap (nee Spargur Loop) Park is a decade-long tale of general failure by local public agencies to defend the community interest, a tale that might finally be brought to a close with two words: For Sale.

We don’t say this lightly. Of Bainbridge Island’s 53 miles of shoreline, perhaps 2.5 miles are dedicated to public use. Free access to the water, to splash around or just stand and contemplate the view, is arguably the most precious public resource we have.

So why part with a park overlooking Port Madison?

Long-time readers should recall the saga of the Spargur Loop road end, which played out in these pages 13 years ago. Briefly, the city and an area yacht club both laid claim to the same sliver of land on a high bluff overlooking the bay. Deciding that a court battle to ascertain title would be costly and fruitless, the sides struck a deal by which the city ceded the road end to the yacht club, which in turn contributed money toward the $257,000 purchase by the city of a vacant lot next door. Spargur Loop Park (later redubbed “T’Chookwap”) was born.

Sadly, the designation of “park” has proved nominal at best. Despite development of a master plan, the half-acre parcel was never improved. It was also unpopular with neighbors, some of whom objected that any amenities or parking spaces would draw rabble from around the island to make noise and carry on at all hours outside residents’ windows. A 2001 public hearing on the park’s future even took on ugly class overtones not often heard in this community. One neighbor argued that islanders had no innate right of access to the water; if you didn’t own waterfront property, he contended, that was your choice. Stay out of our neighborhood, even if it’s your park.

Four years later, the park still has few amenities, boasting only a bench and several randomly strewn picnic tables. There’s not even a sign announcing it as a park; that came down after the last round of neighbor complaints. For whatever reasons, T’Chookwap Park was never realized. Perhaps it’s time to sell it and move on.

And that makes considerable sense, now that another, better property is available just around the corner. The city now has the chance to purchase a much larger – and infinitely more useful — parcel nearby. The six-acre property boasts low-bank access and its own dock, suitable for tying up sailboats or dinghies. As the only public access to the waters of Port Madison, it would be a tremendous community asset.

As to T’Chookwap Park, it should be clear by now that it’s never going to be much more than a vacant lot while in public hands. Selling it could put some money back into the city’s open space fund, to help purchase more desirable and useful land somewhere else. Who knows, perhaps the yacht club will want to add the parcel to its own holdings, 13 years after it helped buy it in the first place.

And if something big and obtrusive and noisy and unpalatable to the neighbors gets built there, well, nobody else is likely to complain much.