Playing with fire: Scalding equipment raises safety concerns at East San Jose playground

AN 18-FOOT-TALL chicken named Chiquita overlooks children racing across the playground, while Alexandra Villalobos sits on a picnic blanket with her 12-year-old son Max at Emma Prusch Farm Park in East San Jose. Her two younger children are using the newly renovated playground, and Villalobos has warned them to avoid the sizzling-hot metal slides and rough wooden climbing logs.

Pop-up canopies with laminated signs warn families of scalding slides in the hot sun. But the temporary canopies don’t fully shade the three metal slides, leaving Villalobos disappointed. She said after a long wait for a new playground, the park’s renovations fall short. Park advocates said this highlights inequities in East San Jose, leaving city officials working on the playground’s problems more than a month after it opened in May.