Wheelchair Test Leaves Encinitas Park in Limbo

Joe McGuire made it all the way to the top of the hill and down again. But no one was satisfied, not even McGuire.

The county park planner Tuesday played the part of a disabled person in a wheelchair and tested the accessibility of the winding path that leads to the summit of a tiny hilltop park on D Street.

He shucked his suit jacket, flexed his shoulders as if warming up for a race, then plunked himself down in the blue and chrome wheelchair and started the ascent.

Slowly at first, then, as he built up momentum, almost briskly, he wheeled to the first level resting place, pausing only a moment to survey his audience of newspaper and television cameramen, a county staff member, a Handicapped Advisory Committee member, two representatives of the development firm that built the park and adjoining condominium complex, and a reporter or two. Then upward he went again, straining against gravity and bucking a stiff breeze from the ocean.

McGuire huffed and puffed his way to the top, then turned around and came down the steep concrete pathway as slowly as he could.

At stake was the county’s acceptance of the 1.76-acre park built and tended for the last three years by McKellar Development of La Jolla. It had been agreed that the company would build the park and maintain it for several years until the county took it over. Until the county gives final approval of the park and the adjacent 99-unit condominium project, the firm must continue paying hefty premiums on a $1-million surety bond.

McGuire, who was literally in the driver’s seat Tuesday, was testing the park path to determine whether the park is accessible to the handicapped--a county requirement for all its public recreation areas.

After his successful uphill-downhill run, McGuire shook his head and commented that he was an able-bodied male, not a disabled person who might have had more difficulty in reaching the viewpoint at the top and safely descending.

That comment was nearly the breaking point for Cher Legate, land development coordinator for McKellar.

“This park was built to specifications supplied to us by the county. And if there is anything wrong with it, we’ll fix it . . . but I must protest the county continually adding new requirements once we have met the others,” she said.

McKellar had planned to hand over the park and get its bond back six months ago, Legate said, but “county bureaucracy” and a lack of communication between the developer and the government had stalled the transfer and left the park in limbo for half a year.

“There’s a flaw in the system,” she said. “The park department should have been brought into this at the beginning instead of causing delays and causing the company to put out thousands of dollars because of it.

“Just let us know what we have to do. We’ll do it,” she added, with a fierce side glance at McGuire.

But McGuire tossed the ball to the county representatives for the handicapped: “It’s up to the committee.”

Pat Medlock, the lone representative of the 11-member advisory group, was noncommittal about the wheelchair trial that had been expected to decide the fate of the D Street park.

“I was more concerned about coming down the hill,” she explained, pointing out that the flat rest-ramps on the walkway did not seem to retard McGuire’s descent appreciably. “And most of our park paths have handrails,” which the D Street park does not.

Medlock agreed with the McKellar representatives that the matter should be decided quickly, and promised to bring the issue up for discussion and a decision at the committee’s April 25 session.

“We can’t keep maintaining this park forever,” Legate said in a parting salvo. “The people around here want this park, and it’s time to let the people start enjoying it.”