OXNARD : Work to Start on Wheelchair Path

After nearly a year of planning, construction of a 60-foot-long concrete path for the wheelchair-bound is scheduled to begin today at Oxnard State Beach.

Ed Hunt, a recent stroke victim who lives near the beach, has gathered donations of materials and labor from five businesses and the U. S. Navy to help him build the path, sparing Oxnard the expense.

Doug Bungert, a city landscape architect, estimated that the path would cost $2,000 if the city were to build it.

“I’m excited as all hell,” Hunt said. “I’ve been working on this sucker for nearly a year now. I can’t believe it’s finally becoming a reality.”

But Hunt still needs some help to complete his dreamscape with beach umbrellas, bronze plaques and benches, which he estimates will cost $7,000.

“I’m hoping for donations,” Hunt said.

Hunt, a member of the rehabilitation board at St. John’s Regional Medical Center, started the project because he wanted to get closer to the ocean than the existing path would allow.

“We can’t see the ocean because the sand dunes are too high,” Hunt said of people in wheelchairs.

Today, he said, many other people in wheelchairs have learned about the project and are awaiting its completion.

Bungert, who is helping oversee the path’s construction, said it should be finished by the end of the week.

Employees of the state beach will maintain the path with a sweeper, he said.

The path is part of the general plan for the state beach, which the California Coastal Commission and California Architecture Unit have already approved.