Long Beach : El Dorado Park Chosen as Site of Sports Complex

The City Council this week picked northern El Dorado Park as the site of a proposed family sports complex, amid criticism that the city is planning to add another recreational facility to the park-rich east side of Long Beach at the expense of the rest of the community.

Selection of the site is the first step toward establishing a sports complex at the park, but council members stressed that they were not committing themselves to the project. Funding has not been approved, nor has its design. However, the mayor’s task force that recommended El Dorado Park envisions the complex as a series of playing fields that would be used by adult teams, freeing up parkland elsewhere in the city for youth teams.

The task force concluded that the park, with its vast acreage, was the only location in the city that could accommodate a 25- to 35-acre complex of fields. But some residents, pointing out that the park lies in the 5th District, where the mayor and many members of the task force live, complained that the other districts in central and west Long Beach have a much greater need for recreational facilities to serve children in poor neighborhoods. Some council members also questioned whether more recreational money should be spent on the prosperous east side. The council selected the park site on a 7-2 vote, with Councilmen Ray Grabinski and Evan Anderson Braude voting no.