Maintenance of Park Resumes

Monte Vista Nature Park was reopened this week, thanks to voter approval of a $39 park maintenance property assessment.

The park was shut down a year ago when the city’s previous park maintenance district was disbanded, according to Mary Lindley, director of community services. The park covers one acre near the intersection of Spring and Tierra Rejada roads.

Measure P, which would have continued the assessment, failed to receive the two-thirds majority it needed to pass in late 1997. Moorpark paid for upkeep on 13 of the city’s public parks through a budget surplus last year but was later forced to make cutbacks in the maintenance budget, which resulted in the closing of Monte Vista.

Lindley said the park is dramatically different from the city’s other, more traditional parks.

“There’s a picnic area and a drinking fountain, but for the most part it’s in a small hill and it looks like less of a manicured kind of setting,” Lindley said. “It looks a little more rustic.”

Park maintenance worker John Casillas and his crew spent Thursday trimming trees, clearing up the park’s trail system and cutting weeds which have grown in the last year.

“It’s not in very bad shape at all,” Casillas said. “It’ll be just fine.”

City maintenance workers expect to spend the next four or five days getting the weeds under control, the trash cleared away, the trails redefined and the sprinklers back online.

Casillas said the park is popular with residents.