Camarillo Bid for Baseball Now in Sight

Camarillo moved a giant step closer to being the home of a minor league baseball franchise Wednesday night when the Pleasant Valley Parks and Recreation District board unanimously passed a motion authorizing the use of Freedom Park as the site for a temporary baseball facility.

Since March, Ken McMullen, Jim Biby and Jim Colborn have been trying to bring minor league baseball to Ventura County.

The owners received permission to use Freedom Park as a stadium site from the same board back in April. The plan died only days later, however, when the Camarillo City Council rejected a proposal to fund the project by a 4-1 vote.

This time, the group has come up with a private, and as yet undisclosed, source of funding.

“We have an oral commitment from a person to fund the project,” McMullen said after the vote. “The identity of that person will be announced later, after we have formalized a deal through an attorney.”

Less than a month ago, McMullen warned that Ventura County might lose its chance to have a team if his group did not receive a commitment on a playing site by Sept. 15.

“This is what we’ve been waiting for all these months,” McMullen said. “We were simply running out of time. It was getting frustrating--all the politics. It was time to start acting on the thing and not just talking about it.”

McMullen estimated, however, that it will take close to three more months before actual construction can begin.

“By the time we have a rental agreement drawn up and all the needed permits filled out it will probably be around Dec. 1 before we can get started,” he said. The move to Freedom Park will also need the approval of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The motion was passed by the five-member board despite the objections of a small group of youth soccer supporters who complained that the construction of a stadium would have an adverse impact on the city’s soccer programs.

Nancy Bush, board chairman, said that the addition of a stadium to the Freedom Park property would cause the elimination of at least one soccer field and a possible reduction in size of another.

Securing a site at Freedom Park has been a priority for the owners since July, when a preliminary stadium feasibility study showed that it would be an attractive place for a playing facility.

When the study, which was done by the Harrison Price Co. of Los Angeles, was finally completed three weeks ago, the Freedom Park site was actually second choice to an undeveloped piece of property near the intersection of South Central Avenue and U.S. 101.

The property is owned by the Joe McGrath family of Camarillo. It is county property, zoned for agriculture. Any construction would require a zoning change.

Acquiring the zoning change would be impossible this year because of a state law the prohibits a city from making more than four general plan changes in a year. Camarillo has already used its allotment.

That made Freedom Park even more attractive.

The proposed temporary facility will seat between 1,800 and 2,100, according to McMullen. The ownership say they will pay for the installment of lights and the playing field. All permanent improvements will become property of the district should the team’s lease not be extended.

It is also possible that the park will be the permanent site for the proposed multipurpose stadium.