Go after them at every angle you can.
@ father.nature...
We pushed for zoning changes on vacant city owned lots to ban the erection of billboards. When the city cracked down on private landlords over the conditions of their properties we held the city to the same standard on seized propertys.
When the city council said they could not afford such levels of maintenance we quickly offered to help, but it was on the condition that they had to sign a contract turning over property maintenace to the neighborhood group on the condition the property became a park and was maintained as a park.
As part of the maintenance proposal tell them you have a local veteran or similar person you wish to name the park after. We found a neighborhood family that had 4 generations of veterans that glady gave their name to the project.
Get video of all the meetings for posting to a Facebook page sponsoring the park. Find a sympathetic local reporter to feed status updates to. When the city council makes the evening news for shooting down a neighborhood groups efforts to create a veterans park out of a vacant lot they tend to lose votes.
I do not know what form of city government you have, but if you have a district councilor have a sit down with them and explain their options. Get on board or look stupid for opposing it.
Good luck.
