Angels Gate Panel Suggests Gradual Make-Over for Park

A citizens committee studying the development of Angels Gate Park in San Pedro has recommended that the City of Los Angeles begin by building one soccer field, rather than two, and use the remaining money for other improvements, such as a picnic area overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

The recommendation means that the Angels Gate Cultural Center and the California Conservation Corps will be able to extend their stays in the complex of former military barracks they occupy at the park, although the conservation corps will lose six of its 18 buildings. Had the committee opted for two soccer fields, all the barracks would have had to come down to make room.

“We might just have to pack some stuff in a little tighter,” said Cisco Hunter, area manager for the conservation corps and a member of the committee. “It’s just like having your mother-in-law move in.”

Committee member Noah Modisett said the committee favored “a staged process in which there was the least disruption. . . . If you don’t tear down the cultural center and if you don’t tear down the CCC, you can obviously continue to take care of their needs, and if at the same time you put in at least one athletic field, you’re taking care of those needs too.”

The 18-member committee spent two months reviewing a master plan unveiled by Los Angeles officials in late January for the development of Angels Gate.

The plan called for $1.7 million in improvements, but because the city has only $650,000 to spend, Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores appointed the committee to set priorities for the first phase of development.

Eventually, according to the master plan, the city will demolish 33 of the 40 barracks that remain from the park’s days as part of Ft. MacArthur. Buildings will be left for an American Indian cultural center, an all-purpose recreation center, office space and other recreational uses.

The master plan also calls for the eventual development of a second, adjacent soccer field which, together with the first one, would form a baseball field.

Need for New Building

The cultural center is to move to a new building, which it must construct with its own money. In the meantime, it may remain in the buildings it now uses.

The conservation corps eventually will have to find a new home because the federal government, which deeded the park to the city, mandates that the land be used for recreation only.

The committee’s recommendations for the first phase of development will be drafted into a report during the next two weeks and forwarded to Flores, who will turn it over to the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks.

Jane Rasco, recreation superintendent for the department’s Pacific region, said it could be a year before work begins. In the interim, state officials, who are providing the $650,000 from bond money, must approve the plan.

Among its recommendations, the citizens committee has suggested that the city make construction of the soccer field its first priority. A secondary priority, the panel said, should be developing cultural facilities, historic monuments, a maintenance facility and a picnic areas, with special emphasis on the latter. The committee gave third priority to improving the Gaffey Street entrance to the park.

The committee also turned down a proposal from harbor-area Boy Scouts, who wanted to build a meeting place at Angels Gate. A local Scout troop has been using a park building as a clubhouse, but the building is slated to come down and the Recreation and Parks Department has ordered the Scouts out.

Although recreation officials have offered the Scouts the use of the community room at the park, Scout officials have protested, saying they need a place of their own.

The committee, however, said the Scouts should be treated the same as other groups who must either lease space from the department or use the community room for their meetings.