FOUNTAIN VALLEY : Park Improvement Spending Approved

The City Council this week approved spending $103,000 in state park bond money to make improvements to city parks and the Fountain Valley Recreation and Cultural Center.

The funds will be used to improve sidewalks, baseball field lighting, bleachers and soccer goal posts. The improvements will be the last in a series with funds approved by voters in 1988.

So far, the city has built basketball courts at Los Alamos and Helm parks and a soccer field at the recreation center, and has installed lighting for that field and new playground equipment at Vista View Park.

“Most of it has already taken place,” said Wayne Osborne, director of public works.

The lighting for two baseball fields at the recreation center will cost $30,000; the goals for the new soccer field will cost $6,000; and “hardscape”--installation of sidewalks, curbs and gutters at the recreation center between the parking lot and the playing fields--will cost $47,000. The remaining $20,000 will be used for park benches, picnic tables, trash cans, drinking fountains, lighting and other miscellaneous items throughout the city, Osborne said.

The city’s Parks and Recreation Commission had proposed building picnic shelters and new restrooms at Cordota and Allen parks and new restrooms at Ellis Park, but neighbors opposed those additions, Osborne said. The commission then eliminated those plans from its proposal and came up with the construction work approved by the council Tuesday.

The city had also proposed perimeter fencing for the outfields at the recreation center, but the state, which must approve any use of the funding, said the fencing was not recreational but rather for maintenance, Osborne said.

Construction on the “hardscape” work should start Aug. 1 and take a month and a half. The lighting will not be installed until December because the city must design it and send the job out for bid.