Group Hopes to Turn Park Into Cultural Mecca

A group of Camarillo residents wants to transform a makeshift park next to City Hall into a community cultural center.

The four-acre site on Carmen Drive, officially named Constitution Park in 1987, is undeveloped except for a pavilion donated by the Camarillo Arts Council. The arts council has held free concerts there for eight years, carting out a portable sound system from storage each summer and stringing electrical cords across the grass.

Those facilities will become permanent if efforts of the Camarillo Constitution Park Committee go as planned. The committee hopes to turn the city-owned park into a full-fledged cultural center featuring concerts, fairs and other events.

The project is expected to cost $250,000, but organizers are hoping that expenses will be defrayed by contributions of building materials and labor, chairwoman Sandi Bush said. A major fund-raising campaign that targets corporate sponsors is planned for summer, she said.

So far, the committee has raised $25,000, mainly in private donations, said Larry Davis, assistant city manager. The city will maintain the new park. “It will be a picnic-in-the-park thing,” Bush said. The other 20 parks in the city are run by the Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District and mainly offer facilities for sports and cookouts, she said. “This park is more versatile.”

With its new design, the park will keep the popular summer concerts. But wiring will now be underground and the sound system permanent. That will largely eliminate the need to haul musical equipment around, organizers said.

Davis said the improvements should also enhance the park’s image with its neighbors. Residents have complained about the noise level there, he said.

“The sound system will be designed to direct the sound to stay in the area and have better sound-level controls,” Davis said.

Other planned improvements to the park include benches, a circular walkway partly inlaid with engraved bricks and 13 Victorian-era lampposts--each representing one of the original colonies, Bush said.

Corrine Merritt, vice president of the Camarillo Arts Council, said she appreciates the effort to beautify the park.

“We love the park,” she said. “I can’t remember the city without the park. It is such an enhancement for cultural activities and for community get-togethers.”

The arts council started a seven-concert series at the park May 19, with an Eastern European folk band. Upcoming programs are to feature jazz, a Scottish festival, Spanish music and a Shakespearean play, Merritt said. The concerts, held on weekend afternoons, typically draw about 1,000 people, she said.

Designated a temporary park when City Hall was built in 1977, the land was initially held in reserve for a possible expansion of the building or a new police station, Davis said.

When the city abandoned those plans, a group of residents decided to upgrade the site, he said. With the city’s approval, they designated it Constitution Park and formed a committee to finish it, Davis said.

The naming of the park was a salute to American patriotism, Bush said.

“It is the spirit of volunteerism, and the pride in our community and ourselves as Americans,” she said.

Backers hope to begin construction of the park next winter and complete it by summer, 1992.

“It is a wonderful meeting place for the community,” Bush said. “It provides something special for Camarillo.”