We Need More Parks of Any Kind

* The Times editorial of April 12 addresses the wrong issues when it discusses the choice between parks being “developed” with sports fields, Boy Scout facilities and tot lots versus being left in a “natural state.”

In an increasingly urban county, we obviously have substantial unmet needs for both types of facilities. Unfortunately, our county government has made a series of decisions to beggar the park system. County supervisors diverted $4 million a year from Harbors, Beaches and Parks for bankruptcy recovery. The Harbors, Beaches and Parks Department has been cannibalized by bureaucracy. Admission prices have been raised, maintenance is haphazard and revenue development is the watchword. General-fund revenue does not contribute to the park system in any meaningful amount.

How does this shortsighted cheapness play out in specifics? Look at the Boy Scouts’ proposal for O’Neill Regional Wilderness Park. Their aquatic facility, water slide, archery range, amphitheater and buildings are completely incompatible with the proposed wilderness park location, but would be complementary in an urban park like Mile Square. In Mile Square, the Boy Scouts could use the existing archery range, lakes for fishing and canoeing, hobby areas and ball fields. Urban Scouts could camp overnight and cycle down the Santa Ana River trail to wetlands and the beach at the mouth of the river. Mile Square Park finally could have an interpretive center, a boathouse, overnight camping and some habitat areas. The Scouts could continue to use the overnight camping and day-use areas at O’Neill in a nonintrusive manner, exposing Scouts to a wilderness experience.

But wait. This possibility has already been ruled out by supervisors who prefer a third golf course in the center of Mile Square Park, to the exclusion of all other current and potential recreational facilities. Promises of revenue development replace diverted money, while the 98% of us who are not avid golfers lose other activities, and the entire county park system loses options. Golf course developers and their lobbyists got to the supervisors, while the Harbors, Beaches and Parks Commission’s recommendations were ignored.

Orange County voters would be well advised to ask candidates for supervisor how they feel about funding our park system, how all of our recreational needs should be met and how important parks are to our children and grandchildren.

We need a vibrant regional county park system offering a wide range of recreational opportunities.

GUS AYER

Fountain Valley

* While I fully sympathize with parents who are looking for space for ball fields for their children, Harriett Wieder Regional Park is hardly an appropriate site for such uses. The site is also known as Linear Park, an apt name in that it appears on maps as a thin green line that is not typical of other county regional parks.

The park site is so narrow in one spot there is not even room for a trail, and negotiations will be needed to acquire easement rights from a landowner. The contours of the site run from slightly sloping to nearly vertical, requiring a considerable amount of grading and filling to accommodate ball fields, maintenance facilities, spectator areas and parking lots. Ball fields are a bad idea and should be laid to rest. Also, the park as natural open space fulfills an enormously important function as a buffer between the heavily developed Seacliff area and the Bolsa Chica wetlands.

DAVID CARLBERG

President, Amigos de Bolsa Chica

Huntington Beach