Even the Ants Are Invited to City Picnic

Councilman Rich Freschi waxes enthusiastic as he talks about his idea.

“There’ll be games and fishing and food booths and a 55-piece orchestra from the high school!” he said. “Everybody’s going to have a great time. And why not? Life’s too short not to have a good time.”

Freschi’s idea is to have an annual city picnic at Irvine Lake, starting this year on June 1.

He envisions virtually all of Villa Park’s 6,450 residents flocking to the shores of the lake, forming a Norman Rockwell-painting-like scene of small-town America.

“You got it,” Freschi said. “Small-town America. Do you remember the old movies ‘State Fair’ and ‘Picnic’? That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about.”

Like the colorful Professor Harold Hill in yet another old movie, “The Music Man,” Freschi is tooting up the community picnic all over his small, affluent city.

Freschi has promised lots of music. Villa Park High’s orchestra will be joined by the school’s 18-piece jazz band, he said. “And when there’s not live music, we’ll have a professional audio and stage company playing records.”

The City Council already has approved the community picnic and voted to advance it $3,000 for preparation expenses. Freschi said he believes the city will recoup that advance in ticket sales. Youth groups are selling tickets at $2 per person, and the organizations get to keep half of what they sell.

“This way we get to help the youth groups, like the Little League and the Scouts, in our city,” Freschi said.

Children 5 and younger will be admitted free.

Freschi, 60, picked Irvine Lake as the site because the Villa Park-based Serrano Irrigation District, an event co-sponsor, has partial jurisdiction of the lake. Although not within the city, Irvine Lake is only a few miles away, off Santiago Canyon Road.

Freschi said the idea came to him “because we have a super asset in Irvine Lake, and a lot of people don’t know it.”

The water site offers many opportunities, Freschi said. While most of the picnic activities will be from noon to 7 p.m., early-risers can take part in a fishing derby at 7 a.m. “There’ll be lots of prizes,” Freschi said.

Other contests will include rope pulls, three-legged races and water balloon and egg tosses. “We’ll also have dunk tanks where kids can try to dunk the principals from their schools,” Freschi said.

Freschi, who is also the mayor pro tem, was elected to the council in November. Freschi said he envisions the mayor pro tem position as being in charge of the city picnic in subsequent years.

“I want this to be the start of a tradition we do every year in the summer,” he said. “We want to keep that old community spirit going.”