BUENA PARK : City Water Well OKd Over Protest

To satisfy disgruntled neighbors, Recreation and Community Services Department officials agreed to add $5,000 worth of lights and motion detectors to a structure that will surround a new city water well being dug in Boisseranc Park.

Residents had told officials in meetings that the well and its eight-foot-tall housing would sully the park and attract transients and teen-agers who would use it as a refuge from police.

During the Monday session in which the City Council approved the well plans, Mayor Donald L. Bone said he is “taken aback” by residents’ continuing protest concerning the well project.

“It comes down to putting it where it’s proposed or abandoning the project,” Bone said. He could not support junking the plans, he said, because the city hopes to save residents $1 million in rising water rates by reducing dependence on outside sources.

The city had moved the well location within Boisseranc Park so it would not obstruct the views of the park from nearby homes. Neighbors were mollified, but said they would be happier if the well were somewhere else entirely.

“I appreciate them working with us, but is there any place else to put this?” asked Sharon McCambridge, whose home adjoins the park. “It’s a community park.”

Public Works Director Donald K. Jensen said his department had not considered other sites because Boisseranc “is where the water aquifer is.”