Dueling do-gooders

They plant flowers, pick up trash, hold bake sales. In all of civic life, there may be few images more harmonious than those of the volunteers who look after neighborhood parks. Not so in Allston these days.

At Stanley A. Ringer Park, two volunteer groups -- Ringer Park Partnership Group and the new Friends of Ringer Park -- have now emerged from a recent history of rancor and power-grabs.

In a word, the groups hate each other. Their leaders have exchanged insults in the letters section of a neighborhood newspaper. Meetings at a local community center have been carefully scheduled to avoid confrontations, and the park's annual spring cleanup this year will be two separate efforts. The conflict, simmering since 2004, entered a new phase last month when one leader spread word that an opponent of the group was a Level 2 sex offender.

Volunteer groups in Boston play a key role in park maintenance and beautification, and city parks officials routinely meet with groups to coordinate efforts. But behind closed doors at City Hall, some officials have taken to calling some of the feuding Allston volunteers the ''nutcases from Ringer Park."

The Allston Brighton Community Development Corporation hired a facilitator in an attempt to resolve disputes. The effort failed, and the CDC threw in the towel, saying it would no longer work with a Ringer Park group.

''We know if we have another meeting, we will have a war there," said Juan Gonzalez, community organizing director for the ABCDC. ''For the sake of the neighborhood we said, 'No more.' "

Optimists might say that such rancor is a minor byproduct of a passion and dedication that can only benefit the park. But that is apparently not the case. Ringer has been vandalized repeatedly in recent months, and last fall, someone set fire to $80,000 worth of playground equipment.

Far from uniting the two groups, the incidents fueled animosity, with the groups accusing each other of causing the destruction.

''I feel ridiculous even talking about it," said Valarie Lima, vice president of the newly formed Friends of Ringer Park. ''It's a shame."

As in most conflicts, there are two sides. On one is Joan Pasquale, an Allston resident of 37 years who takes care of office buildings for a living. On the other are two younger residents who moved to the neighborhood more recently, Harvard University employees Lima and Ann Frenning Kossuth.

Pasquale, Kossuth and other residents got together in 2003 to look after Ringer park, a then somewhat neglected 12 acres tucked between Commonwealth and Brighton avenues near the local Boys and Girls club.

It wasn't long before things went awry. By both accounts, it happened about two years ago, when Pasquale established another organization, the Parents Community Build Group, to spearhead an effort to make playground improvements.

The group raised some $80,000, but a faction that chafed at the group's aggressive style began to emerge.

''It started to get very, very complicated," Gonzalez said.

Pasquale, who concedes a certain competitive zeal, points to the bottom line, saying she raised money, unlike those who opposed her.

''Between the lot of them," she said, ''they didn't even buy a $5 raffle ticket."

The division deepened last year when disagreements about dogs took center stage. Many members of the Friends group were dog owners, while Pasquale's group was interested in enforcing leash laws.

A member of the Friends group had launched an online discussion group for dog owners who use Ringer Park. Pasquale's group charged that groomers and walkers from as far away as Quincy flocked to let dogs roam.

The CDC decided it was time to bring in a facilitator.

''After two, three hours, it was impossible to get any agreement at all," Gonzalez said.

The formal ''dog mediation" group met in June and again in September before falling apart completely.

''The facilitator was a very nice woman who can cause reconciliation between gangs, but not us," said Lima, a dog owner.

Shortly after, in October, some of the new playground equipment was destroyed by an arsonist; investigators said it had been doused with an accelerant and set ablaze. The CDC pulled out, and Kossuth decided to stage a coup, holding meetings of a new group in her living room, calling it the ''revised" Friends of Ringer Park.

Not to be outdone, Pasquale launched another group of her own, the Ringer Park Partnership Group. Even though she has only a handful of regular attendees, Pasquale says she's not giving up.

''That's exactly what they want," she said. ''They want us to pick up [and go]. But I live here."

The groups are now competing for neighborhood volunteers at separate cleanup events, both scheduled for April 29. Pasquale's group is offering donated chips and homemade brownies to those who show up to help. Kossuth's group is pledging coffee and pizza.

Officials from the Mayor's Office of Neighborhood Services, which is providing bottled water and tools, say they hope there'll be enough park to go around.

''We're not going to have separate tool stations or separate coffee stations," said Jay Walsh, neighborhood services director. ''The fact that they both love the park should be enough to set aside their differences and work together."

Gonzalez says he's steering clear of the whole mess.

''I don't know what's going to happen," he said.

Donovan Slack can be reached at dslack@globe.com.