East Side Needs a Park

Teamwork is a wonderful thing. We hope it will be the guiding spirit of the thousands of young people who fill the soccer fields, basketball courts and softball diamonds of Ventura’s long-dreamed-of east end regional sports park.

But we have concerns about a proposed team effort between the city of Ventura and the Ventura Unified School District that would use part of that park for a school site.

We do appreciate the creative thinking that led to discussions about building a middle school--another East Side necessity--on about one-quarter of the 100 acres at Kimball and Telephone roads where the city envisions the park. The school could share the park’s athletic facilities and the school district could sell the 40-acre site it owns on Henderson Road.

That’s the kind of big-picture thinking we like to see from public agencies. Unfortunately, innovative ideas aren’t necessarily good ideas.

The first problem is that adding the school would mean sacrificing some of the park facilities. According to Peter Brown, the city’s community services manager, with or without the school the park plan will include six standard-size basketball courts, 15 soccer fields and four softball fields. But either of two design options with middle school would have two fewer tennis courts than the sports-park-only option.

The second, and greater, problem is that use of the remaining facilities would be limited by the school’s needs and security concerns. There are good reasons why school playgrounds are not open to the public, and we fear that the community’s free use of this park would lose out.

During a town hall meeting last month, representatives of the American Youth Soccer Organization, the Tri-Valley Girls’ Softball League, the Ventura Wildcats basketball league and other youth sports groups expressed reservations. Other hearings will be held Feb. 2 and Feb. 16 at City Hall. Once the district and city decide on an option, it will be placed on the November ballot to seek funding approval. If approved by voters, the sports park would likely be in operation by 2002 or 2003.

The city of Ventura is far behind in the amount of parkland called for in its General Plan. The whole point of building this one is to help correct that deficit--in more human terms, to give East Side kids (of all ages) a place to play safely and often.

In this case, we believe the city should follow through with its plan to give East Side residents the regional sports park they have long been promised--the whole thing.