Santa Paula: Four Parks to Receive Colorfully Themed Playground Equipment

 By Sheryl Hamlin

During the May 7th 2018 council meeting, the new park equipment for four city parks was unveiled by Ed Mount, Community Services Director, and Kate Little, the equipment manufacturer “designer”.

Ms. Little explained that she studied Santa Paula’s fascinating history and came up with four themes, one for each park. She stressed that the equipment is ADA compliant. Mr. Mount stressed that the existing equipment is old.

In Public Comments, Anna Chavez asked for a volleyball court to be included because parks should service all ages. Sheryl Hamlin asked if the Recreation Commission had reviewed the proposal, if anyone at the city had visited other installations to inspect the product, if the staff had researched the durability of the product, and suggested that only one park be done until the quality had been proven.

Ed Mount responded only that the equipment needed to be replaced, citing no due diligence he or other staff had performed. Nor did he indicate this had been a competitive bid. He did say that the Park and Recreation Commision had reviewed the proposal in February 2018. The Recreation commissioners approving the project at the February 2018 meeting were: Edd Bond, Karen L. Berry, Tim Hicks, Sharon Mittelholtz, William Grant.

Note that Mill Park is a county historic landmark. Read this about Mill Park History. Mount did not say if any of the historic groups in the city had been contacted with respect to the Mill Park “design”. The Design Assistance Commttee (DAC) which is part of the Historic Ordinance and is supposed to review changes to historic properties. Unfortunately, Mill Park, like many in Santa Paula, is registered with the County of Ventura, but not with the City of Santa Paula, so much history is ignored.

The cost of the four parks is shown in the chart below. The equipment is being funded from a city park fund and the city will use a financing company, details or advantages of which were not included in the staff report. Note that the park with the least amount of equipment is the Boys & Girls Club, which had presented earlier in the meeting about the large number of children it serves.

Park Costs

Below are pictures of the four “themed” parks which were approved.

Council discussed playground fill and approved the purchase with direction to return with a cost for a volleyball court.

To watch the testimonies, click here. The Public Testimony is near the start of the meeting.

For more information on author click sherylhamlin dot com

Get Citizensjournal.us Headlines free  SUBSCRIPTION. Keep us publishing –DONATE