Sprucing Up the Oaks : Most of O’Neill Park Will Be Closed During 5-Month Renovation

For 44 years, people have trampled on it, camped on it, made cooking fires on it. Homeless people have lived in it. Tens of thousands have made use of O’Neill Regional Park. But the traffic of four decades has badly marred the county’s second-oldest park.

“It’s possible to love a place to death,” supervising park ranger Mark Carlson said, picking at the decaying bark of one of O’Neill’s felled oak trees.

To resurrect the 2,300-acre park, officials will close most of it on Monday to begin a five-month remodeling effort funded largely by state bond money.

The $1.5-million overhaul will convert the park into more of a day-use facility, cutting camping spaces from about 160 to 93 and adding more playing and walking areas. Access for the disabled will be improved, an irrigation system will be added to support hundreds of new plantings, and an instructional center will be opened for wildlife exhibits.

To make way for the workers, officials have already closed a portion of the park. Come Monday, all but 400 acres of day-use area--picnic spots, biking and hiking trails--will be off-limits. Until December, there will be no overnight stays permitted at the park except for youth groups.

Carlson said that overnight campers--both recreational users and the homeless--will have to use the two other county campgrounds that allow overnight stays: Featherly Regional Park in Yorba Linda or Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park in San Juan Capistrano.

One of those campers, Dale Carkey, 39, said Thursday that he was sorry to see the notice posted about the closure.

“I was only planning on staying here until Saturday, but it’s too bad, because I like the place. And I know there are some folks who stay here that don’t have a lot of places to go,” he said.

Carkey isn’t sure where he will be sleeping come Sunday. He said he left a “completely dead” job market in San Diego a few weeks ago to look for work in Orange County. He had been staying at a friend’s house, but opted to move to the park last week.

“Motels get expensive, so I thought I’d stay here for a little while before getting a place. But I don’t know what folks that come here in worse shape are going to do,” he said.

Because the county restricts campers to only 15 nights in any month at any of the three parks, Carlson said he expects the park’s closure will have little effect on the homeless.

“Many of them stay at Featherly anyway because it’s more centrally located in the county, and we’re a little more out of the way, but the ones that would have stayed here can go there or Caspers,” he said.

Starr Fair, who lives in Ontario, has been camping at the park with her three children since Tuesday. She said the renovation will only waste money and hurt the park by reducing the number of campsites.

“This place is just fine the way it is. Why go screwing it up?” she said. “What’s so wrong with the way it looks? The bathrooms are kept great and there’s no litter. Why spend the money?”

Carlson said the county would contribute $300,000 toward the renovations, but most of the cost would be covered by state bond money set aside to improve recreation areas. He said the tight budget climate actually aided the project by keeping bids from work-hungry contractors low.

“It’s going to be beautiful when it’s done,” he said.

Improving the park’s slice of wilderness is more important now than ever because of encroaching development that has put scores of homes across the street from the park’s south border.

“I remember back when I was here in the 1970s, this used to be a huge, gorgeous flat plain,” he said, standing on a ridge and pointing out over the seemingly endless rows of near-identical houses to the south.

“There were hawks and owls, golden eagles and waving grass. I wish I had a picture so I could show you. At least the park is still here.”