MOORPARK : Council to Consider Renaming Parks

Hoping to stem confusion over three city parks with similar names--and to avoid similar problems in the future--the Moorpark City Council on Wednesday will decide whether to rename some existing parks and consider a formal policy that would govern how new parks are named.

The council in August asked the city’s Parks and Recreation Commission to develop the policy and consider new names for three parks in the city’s Mountain Meadows area that residents were having trouble discerning.

“There is a lot of confusion,” said Councilman Scott Montgomery. The confusion stemmed from the similar monikers granted the existing North Meadows and South Meadows parks and the planned West Meadows Park.

The Parks and Recreation Commission has suggested that North Meadows Park be called Mountain Meadows Park, West Meadows Park be renamed West Ranch Park and South Meadows Park be referred to as Rejada Trail Park.

The commission has also drafted a policy by which the council could avoid similar confusion in the future.

But Mayor Paul Lawrason said Monday that he is not in favor of renaming existing parks and questioned the need for the city to adopt a policy outlining a process as simple as naming a park.

“A name is a name is a name as far as I’m concerned,” Lawrason said. “I really am not in favor of renaming them and I am not in favor of going to the formality of having a naming procedure.”

The council will consider both issues at its meeting Wednesday, 7 p.m. in City Hall, 799 Moorpark Ave.