San Fernando Park Patrols to Weigh Incidence of Crime

Cora Barragan stood pensively in the center of the playground at San Fernando’s Recreation Park, her eyes panning the grounds like a closed-circuit security camera.

To her right, she saw a man lying on a picnic table; in front of her were her two children at play; to her left she watched as two beat-up cars pulled up along the sidewalk and several teen-agers spilled out into the park.

“When I got here, there were three men lying on the grass,” she said. “So I sat in the car about five minutes asking myself, ‘Should I or shouldn’t I go down to the playground with the kids?’ I didn’t think it was very safe here.”

The question of safety raised by Barragan, a 30 year-old mother of two, is one San Fernando officials intend to answer beginning this weekend when teams of undercover police begin patrolling city parks.

Are the city’s parks infested with crime or is it a misconception on the part of residents?

Months after the city pumped almost $500,000 in improvements into Recreation Park, a citywide survey showed that residents generally stay away from it and the three other parks because they believe the grounds are unsafe.

But officials believe that it is a “perception problem,” not a crime problem, that plagues the park system.

And to test their thesis, the City Council Monday unanimously approved the expenditure of $3,000 for police patrols. One council member described it as a “symbolic gesture” to show the community that crime in the parks is no worse than anywhere else.

San Fernando Police Chief Charles Sherwood said criminal activity at the parks is “minimal.”

“If there is a problem, as the community perceives there is, then it will come up in the patrols,” Sherwood said. “I’m not saying the parks are crime-free . . . but frankly there is no alarming problem.”

Police statistics showed that from November to April, there were 33 calls to Recreation Park, the city’s largest park, near the civic center. Six of the calls were about group disturbances, two involved narcotics arrests and one had to do with an assault with a deadly weapon. The remainder included traffic accidents, loose dogs and requests for extra patrols by senior citizens.

There were 10 police calls at Las Palmas Park, four of which involved accidental burglar alarms. “At the worst we are talking about five incidents a month,” Sherwood said.

“It all boils down to how people perceive things,” said David Watt, the director of the city Department of Parks and Recreation for 15 years. “Some people see five or six boys sitting in the park and assume it’s a gang and that they are all up to no good.

“But you can’t walk up to a group of teen-agers and say, ‘You can’t be in the park unless you look a certain way,’ ” Watt said. “I’m not saying we don’t have problems. But we are still living with the reputation of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s that gangs have taken over the parks.”

That reputation, officials said, coupled with Proposition 13 budget cutbacks begining in 1978, squeezed out many park programs and cut into maintenance, leaving the four San Fernando parks a virtual “no man’s land,” as one park supervisor said.

Residents were faced with parks that had graffiti-covered walls, dirty bathrooms, baseball diamonds choked with weeds, leaky roofs and poor flooring in meeting facilities.

But with increasing budgets since 1983, the city’s park commission has attempted to begin the process of turning the parks around, adding more part-time maintenance and recreation personnel, said Beverly DiTomaso, president of the seven-member park commission.

Officials hoped this year’s $430,000 redevelopment project at Recreation Park, which included installation of athletic field lights, a softball field, basketball court and tot-lot, would begin the turnaround.

However, the results of the survey, mailed to 5,500 households, showed how far the parks have fallen in the eyes of residents.

Out of the thousands of survey forms sent, which sought opinions on topics ranging from park programs to security, only 358 were returned. Seventy percent of the respondents said they or their family did not use the parks at all. DiTomaso said 44% of those surveyed said they felt unsafe in the parks during the day.

City Councilman Jess Margarito said the bleak rate of return in the survey is a reflection of sentiments about parks.

Parks ‘Not Relevant’

“I think the fact that they did not participate tells us that the park system has not been relevant in their lives,” Margarito said.

Margarito and other city officials regard the temporary police patrols as part of a public relations campaign to lure citizens back to the parks.

DiTomaso also said that in response to the survey, new tables, benches and additional trash cans have been placed in the parks. But for several residents at least, confidence in the parks has not yet been restored.

“The only thing that brings me here is the baseball league,” said Sheila Garcia, 29, who added that she accompanies her 10-year-old son to every practice. “It’s a nice park, but not nice enough to leave a child here alone, even during the games.”

Ray Silva, a lifelong San Fernando resident who is organizing a Neighborhood Watch group in the city’s largely Latino neighborhood, said he agrees that there is a minimal amount of crime in the parks.

‘No One Goes’

“The only reason there’s not much crime at the park is because no one goes to the park anymore,” Silva said. “Most of the people at the park are the ones playing in the soccer leagues or the baseball teams.”

“I remember when I was a teen-ager, my parents would never let us go to the park because of the all the gang problems. I would say that is still in my mind,” said Belinda Marquez, 29, project director of Santa Rosa Community Center and a longtime San Fernando resident. “The only way attitudes about the parks are going to change is when people start seeing more families there.”