La Colonia Handball Courts No Match for Residents’ Ire

It’s game point and the pickup players at La Colonia Park handball court look like they are going to lose this one.

After more than 20 years of players smacking a little rubber ball against two concrete backstops at the park, city officials have said game over and are planning to tear the courts down.

With local residents, park officials and police saying the courts are a magnet for vice and crime, the city decided last month to take down the courts and open new ones across town at the 7th Street Boys & Girls Club.

“Well that doesn’t help us much, does it?” said Jose Leon, a muscular 25-year-old, who has been playing pickup handball at the park since he was a young boy. “We’d have to pass the [railroad] tracks just to play . . . and I don’t think they’d want some of us to be playing there anyway.”

Leon, and a group of other players who gathered at the courts one afternoon recently, said the decision by city officials was an act of discrimination.

The mostly Latino players use the courts both for sport and to socialize. Some of them are gang members, they admit, but the games keep them from getting into mischief.

“This gives us a little freedom from all the chaos that there is around, you know,” Leon said. “We’re better suited for playing here. It’s part of our culture.”

But for people who live in the area, the presence of tattooed young men who are sometimes loud and obnoxious can be intimidating, said Vicky Gonzales, president of the Colonia Neighborhood Council.

“It is a gang rallying point,” Gonzales said. “It’s been going on for over 20 years. We’re not saying that everyone that plays there is a gang member, but there’s been a long association between the Colonia gang and the handball courts. There should be a place for the serious handball players to play, and we want that, but this isn’t it.”

And, according to police who patrol the area, the courts have been used for dealing drugs and drinking.

Senior Police Officer Bob Camarillo, who is beat coordinator for La Colonia, said his officers have found uncapped, used hypodermic needles a few feet from where Little League players have their games.

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Over the 17 years he has been a police officer in Oxnard, Camarillo said he has seen shootings, drug dealing and drunken brawls at the courts.

“This isn’t about taking something away from people but about the overall safety for all the people in this community,” Camarillo said.

Along with the new courts at the Boys & Girls Club, serious handball players will also be able to play at an Oxnard College’s indoor court, Camarillo said.

“I think removing this problem will get more people to use the park,” he said.

Several homeowners who want the courts moved did not want to be identified for fear of retribution from local gang members.

“I’ve already gotten threatening phone calls saying they were going to burn down my house,” said one resident.

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But local handball players who have been using the courts for years feel caught in the middle, said Paulino Godina, a 52-year-old player. Godina has coached a few young street players--Oscar Qesada, 14, and Jason Castro, 21--who have gone on to win both state and national competitions.

“It’s a shame to destroy a recreational facility used by all these people,” Godina said recently after a game.

Godina and officials from the city’s Parks and Facilities Department reached an agreement in September that the Colonia handball courts would not be torn down until other arrangements were made for players. And that is what has kept the courts from being shut down sooner.

Qesada, who started playing because he lived near the park, said the courts helped him stay off the streets.

“It kept me busy and out of trouble,” Qesada said.

But park officials said they were responding to a long and continued history of problems that have occurred around the handball courts. Residents and police support the move, said Michael Henderson, superintendent of the city’s parks department.

“There is neighborhood and police support to move the handball courts,” Henderson said. “And there is a feeling that the handball courts are not an asset to the park.”

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Henderson estimates that it will cost about $95,000 to take down the courts and open new ones at the Boys & Girls Club. He couldn’t estimate when the move would happen, saying that the money to do the work still has to be transferred from the Colonia-Del Sol Parks Improvement Project Fund.

“Once that happens, it will all happen very quickly,” Henderson said.

During a recent game at the courts, someone called out “Changa!” or game point as 53-year-old John “Perico” Cabral finished off another opponent.

The former truck driver and ex-con, who has been playing at the courts for more than 20 years, said the decision to move the courts was a big mistake.

“Look at all these guys here; what are they going to do when you move the courts?” said Cabral. “If they knock these down I think they’re going to have a lot of trouble here.”