Play Field Is Surrounded by Tall Fence, Controversy : Camarillo: Neighbors are barred during school hours from five-acre plot next to campus. They contend it’s a public park. Issue is to be debated Wednesday.

It looks like your average, standard-issue chain-link fence.

But to many residents around Tierra Linda School in Camarillo’s Mission Oaks area, the fence that surrounds a grassy five-acre field does not represent a safety precaution for schoolchildren, but a barrier excluding them from what they believe is a public park.

Shortly before the Pleasant Valley School District finished construction of the elementary school this summer, the area’s park and recreation district ordered that a six-foot-high fence be installed around the play field adjacent to the new school for kindergarten through third grade.

At first, residents along Lynwood Drive and other nearby streets thought that the parks district was simply enclosing the lot to allow newly seeded grass to grow.

However, soon after the grass grew in, they discovered that the barrier was permanent and that they would be able to use the grassy expanse only after school and on weekends.

“They basically gave our park away,” resident Johanna Milford said. “The ironic thing is that from what we can see is that this was always intended to be a public park. You can see it on Thomas Guide maps and you can see it on the tract map that was recorded by the county.”

In fact, both a Ventura County tract map and the 1994 Ventura County Thomas Guide show a Woodcreek Park at Woodcreek Road and Lynwood Drive.

But Eldred Lokker, general manager of the Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District, said a 1991 agreement with the school district committed the parks district to build a park to be shared by the school.

Although entrances at various points along the fence have been installed, they have been sealed from use by the public. Those wanting to use the facility must enter through a main gate next to the school.

At the time the agreement was made, officials did not anticipate that the shared-use concept would create any controversy, Lokker said.

“There lies the crux of the problem,” he said. “It is an open question whether or not members of the public can use the facility during school hours. There’s nothing in the agreement that addresses that.”

School district officials say that although the facility is open to the public during after-school hours and on weekends, safety concerns for schoolchildren require that the entire play field be closed when school is in session.

In a bulletin distributed Nov. 29 to parents, Tierra Linda Principal Dianne Quinby-Anders said she and the school’s Parent Teacher Assn. “adamantly oppose” any public use of Woodcreek Park during school hours.

But neighbors say they were led to believe that the site would be a park and not under control of the school district.

“People who purchased homes in this neighborhood did so believing they would be located near a public park,” said Joel Granath, a 10-year resident of the neighborhood. “What we have now is just a school playground, and we are not welcome there.”

Milford and Granath, along with some of the 200 Woodcreek-area residents who signed a petition against the fence and the shared-use plan, said they will argue their case before the board of directors of the Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District during its meeting at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

At that meeting, the parks district board is expected to reach a decision on the matter.

Neighbors opposed to the school’s use of the park say they will seek to have the fence line along Lynwood Drive moved back from the street, effectively leaving about half of the play field for the public’s use.

Lokker, in an attempt to offer a compromise, suggested to officials earlier this year that a section of the play field facing Woodcreek Road be fenced off and dedicated to the public’s use. The parks district would install such amenities as picnic tables and play equipment for young children there.

“They accepted the positioning of the picnic tables and play equipment, but balked on the idea of installing a second fence,” Lokker said.

Howard Hamilton, the school district’s associate superintendent, said he understood the concerns of the neighbors, but said it was his district’s decision to build Tierra Linda that in turn prompted the parks district to move up the facility on its list of priorities.

“One decision prompted another,” he said. “That place would still be in tumbleweeds if it wasn’t for the fact that we needed to build that school there this year.

“We thought it was a good, cooperative agreement,” he said. “We thought it would be a win-win for everyone.”

During Wednesday’s meeting, Hamilton said school officials hope that the parks board will honor its shared-use agreement and will ask that the play field’s fences be kept where they are.

But for Sherri Varnum, who has a daughter in the first grade at Tierra Linda, the issue should not be about what stimulated the park’s development, it should be whether the public has access to it.

“Believe me, my position on this hasn’t made me the most popular parent” at the school, Varnum said. “But I just don’t feel it’s right for the school to take over a park for most of the day.”

FYI

The Pleasant Valley Recreation and Park District board of directors will consider the issue of public access and fence locations at Woodcreek Park during its meeting at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday. The directors will meet at the Camarillo Community Center, 1605 E. Burnley St.