Fields of a Dream : Oxnard Children Can’t Use Sites When Raiders Are Done

Young Nick Beckton and four friends stood awestruck, watching the Los Angeles Raiders go through their summer paces on the club’s two manicured practice fields at the Radisson Suite Hotel in north Oxnard.

“Boy, wouldn’t this be a great place for us to practice!” said 11-year-old Nick, viewing the fields that he and his friends were being allowed to visit for the first time.

That Nick and other young soccer players cannot use the fields has become a point of contention in fast-growing north Oxnard, which has just one small public park and none large enough for organized sports.

The Raiders’ 4.3-acre practice facility is owned by the city of Oxnard, which allows the team to use it for $1 a year. But local residents complain that they are kept outside the fields’ high fences not only during the team’s seven-week summer training camp, but all year round.

Raider executive John Herrera said the club has no problem with the public using the field “as long as the place is kept clear for maintenance work four to six weeks before and after we’re there.”

And Radisson officials said that, although the hotel is responsible for the fields’ security and sometimes uses them for special events, the city has final say over how the facility is used.

But Oxnard’s Parks and Recreation Department has ruled that the field should remain closed to the public.

“It’s a beautiful playing field,” said Gary Davis, city parks director, “but it lacks the facilities needed for recreation.”

The fields have no playground equipment, picnic tables or parking. Even if use was confined to organized youth sports, there are no restrooms as required, he said.

Neighborhood parents disputed Davis’ arguments. They maintained that there is plenty of parking space along Vineyard Avenue next to the fields and on unpaved land that borders the facility.

“As for lack of facilities, I don’t know what he’s referring to,” said Cindy Yslas, who has three children enrolled in youth soccer leagues and is president of the Sierra Linda Neighborhood Council.

“They’ve closed the restrooms in the Oxnard parks on weekdays to save money,” she said. “So those facilities aren’t available most of the time anyway.”

Recent construction of several housing tracts with hundreds of homes has created an acute need for parks in north Oxnard, Yslas said. The shortage is so severe partly because a three-acre park site in the River Ridge subdivision has never been developed. The project was first stalled by a dispute about who should clean up contaminated soil and now by a tight city budget for park maintenance, officials said.

“The kids here are desperate for a place to play, and the Raiders’ field would be perfect for them,” Yslas said. She said Sierra Linda Park, the only place nearby where her children can now practice soccer, “isn’t big enough to do much more than take turns kicking.”

Yslas said she plans to take the matter to the citywide Inter-Neighborhood Council meeting on Wednesday.

Two City Council members--Dorothy S. Maron and Michael A. Plisky--said they will ask the Parks and Recreation Department to explain its stand.

“It would be wonderful if the property could be turned into a park that everybody could use,” Maron said.

Plisky, who helped bring the Raiders’ summer camp to Ventura County in the mid-1980s, said he too favors opening the field if such a move does not create financial problems.

“That was part of the original deal--to let kids use the area when the Raiders were away,” Plisky said. “I recall it being discussed when the city bought the property for the hotel and the practice field.”

Plisky added, however, that he wants to hear city officials’ arguments before taking a stand. “I suppose there could be expenses for insurance or personnel. But if there are no major problems, I say let the kids use it.”

Oxnard built the training field in 1985 to lure the Raiders to town. Officials thought that the football team’s presence would boost the city’s image and bring increased tax revenue. Radisson officials have estimated that the team spends $300,000 a season at the hotel.

Leaders of local soccer and baseball leagues said opening the Raiders’ fields would allow hundreds more youngsters to take part in the sports each year.

Doug Ridenour, an American Youth Soccer Organization official, said playground space is so scarce in north Oxnard that scores of youngsters from 5 to 18 aren’t able to play. The chapter is now at its limit of 660 players and cannot expand without more space, he said.

Ridenour said use of the fields would not interfere with the Raiders, since soccer season begins in late August and ends with postseason games in January.

“We’d have much more room for practice on the Raiders’ field than we now have at Fremont Intermediate School, our present base in Oxnard. And we’re always being threatened with having to move from the school because the players’ parents take up so many parking spaces.”

Earl Stone, administrator of Little League in most of Ventura County, said it would be a tremendous deal if young baseball players could use the Raiders’ fields.

“Little League is booming in Oxnard, Port Hueneme and El Rio,” he said. “We have 3,000 players in that area. We’ve had to put several hundred youngsters on a waiting list because of a lack of playing space.”

If the Raiders objected to backstops or base paths being installed on the field, Little League could still use the property for its fast-growing T-ball leagues, Stone said. The leagues involve children of 6 and 7 who play without using backstops or dirt base paths, he said.