-- Sandy D., Central Point

Fichtner-Mainwaring Park is named after Clyde Fichtner and Kenneth Mainwaring, both Medford police officers.

According to Mail Tribune archives, Fichtner joined the police department as the city's first motorcycle traffic patrolman in 1937 and retired as captain in 1971. He died in 1974.

Mainwaring was a police detective when he drowned in 1974 while on a backpacking trip on the Rogue River.

Medford City Council members recommended that the park be named after the two, said Greg Jones, parks department director.

Incidentally, another Medford park is named after a city police officer. Prescott Park was dedicated in 1937 to George Prescott, who was shot and killed in the line of duty.

NO-PARKING ZONE: Several readers caught us spinning our wheels in a May 12 column about McAndrews Road.

Answering a question about why the section of the road east of Crater Lake Avenue has two westbound lanes and only one eastbound, we said on-street parking is allowed eastbound where there's room for a fourth lane.

Wrong.

"All the curbs are painted yellow, which I believe indicates NO parking," one reader wrote.

It's true.

On-street parking is prohibited on that section of McAndrews, where the city painted curbs yellow early this decade when it widened the road. Traffic engineering technician Ralph Browning said that as a concession to neighbors, the city left a "buffer" in place of the fourth lane, making it easier for McAndrews residents to back out of their driveways.

But as the May 12 column noted, that buffer isn't likely to be around much longer. When traffic along the road increases to at least 14,000 cars per day, the city will add the fourth lane.

The daily count is already more than that in some places.

Browning noted the law also allows residents to get a temporary permit from the city if they need short-term on-street parking -- for a garage sale or party parking, for example.

"Once we stripe it for four lanes, that will no longer be an option," he said.