Lanark Park: It’s a Whole New Ballgame

When Juana Rodriguez stepped up to the plate, the shortstop greeted her with a friendly taunt. Then the boy out in left moved in a few steps and joined the chorus. They were daring this 18-year-old clothing boutique cashier to hit the ball their way.

Come on, batter. Swing.

Juana obliged. The shortstop craned his head to watch the ball’s flight. The left fielder backpedaled a few steps, then turned to chase the ball. A baserunner scored as Juana eased into second, responding to her fellow Wildcats’ cheers with a smile.

Too bad the Los Angeles City Council wasn’t there to witness Juana’s heroics last Friday night in Lanark Park in the West San Fernando Valley. If it had, maybe it wouldn’t waste any more time debating that proposed ordinance that would ban some gang members from city parks.

When the LAPD says such a law would cause more problems than it would solve and the ACLU says it’s unconstitutional--when, in short, both agree that it’s a dumb idea--then it’s a pretty safe bet that it’s a dumb idea.

Lanark Park, on the other hand, is proof that Los Angeles is still capable of coming up with good ideas.

Sometimes, it seems, softball is better than hardball . . . especially if you invite the girls to play too.

“A couple of years ago, after dark, I wouldn’t have come to this park without my guns,” said Police Officer Stephanie Tisdale. “This was a hellhole.”

Lanark Park was perhaps the busiest drug bazaar in the Valley, a terrific place to buy and sell crack, a lousy place for a picnic or a ballgame. Families were afraid to visit. When Recreation Director Bill Dusenbery arrived here three years ago, he’d turn away visitors who confused him for a dealer. People from miles around--from Santa Clarita, from Simi Valley, from Woodland Hills--would cruise the park for drugs.

How bad was Lanark? Veteran L.A. parks officials say that Lanark, at its worst, wasn’t as troubled as some of the inner city’s most crime-riddled playgrounds. But there’s no doubt it was the Valley’s worst.

“I’d come here with my son, and they’d be going, ‘What do you want? A dime bag?”’ recalls Norma Solis of El Centro de Amistad, a social service agency that serves Canoga Park’s Latino community.

In two years, all that has turned around. Part of the solution was a series of police raids and undercover narcotics buys. Landlords in nearby apartments were advised on ways to evict drug-dealing tenants. Finally, Sandy Kievman of Councilwoman Joy Picus’ office organized a coalition of community groups, schools and businesses under the banner of KYDS, as in Keep Youth Doing Something--anything, that is, but graffiti and gangbanging.

KYDS has turned Lanark Park into the place to be on a Friday night. When the co-ed ballgames end, the players get together in the gym for pizza, soft drinks and dancing. KYDS has proven so successful that it recently received a $40,000 federal grant, half of which will be used to export the program to Reseda Park.

Solis and Kievman like to tell the story of “the rich white guy in the BMW” who cruised Lanark last summer and asked a couple of KYDS kids if they were selling. Get out of our park, they told him.

“If you come back,” they warned him, “we’ll hurt your car.”

Nobody claims that a little co-ed softball is reforming hard-core gang members. KYDS is meant for the teen-agers on the fringe of gang culture, the ones the social workers say are “at risk.”

Officer Tisdale, who coaches a team called the Lobos, points to two boys named Luis. “These kids could have gone the other way in a heartbeat.”

It’s true, says 17-year-old Luis Marroquin. He used to run with the gang called Canoga Park Alabama, “causing trouble, running around, getting into fights.”

How bad was Luis? Bad enough to be attending Stoney Point High School--a continuation campus. He earned that transfer, he says, for fighting and bringing a knife to his old campus.

“But I’m not like that now,” he quickly adds.

Instead of having veteranos as role models, Marroquin now looks up to Park Directors Dusenbery and John Perez. Marroquin even organized a basketball league for younger kids. He talks of pursuing a career as a recreation director.

And Juana Rodriguez used to hang with “the gangster guys” too, especially at their parties. “I was just there, kickin’ it with them, dancing.”

Now she’s at Lanark on Friday nights. “It’s fun,” she says with a smile.

It’s a pretty smile too.

It may be politically incorrect to say so. But you can be sure this fact is not lost on Luis and the guys.