Planners scrap park project
Efforts to use an area of Wellfield Park for active recreational use have been scrapped due to the recent surfacing of a 2009 biological study that has caused the project to be cost-prohibitive.
“This is essentially the termination of 3-1/2 years of exhaustive work and five three-ring binders full of dead trees,” said Jim Cooper, co-champion of the Active Recreational Park project, at the Ramona Community Planning Group’s June 2 meeting.
Cooper, a member of the planning group and its Parks and Recreation Subcommittee, recommended the project be pulled from the priority list.
The project was proposed as The Amphitheater Project by Art Thomsen in 2013, when the planning group put a call out for ideas to use Park Land Dedication Ordinance funds. Thomsen requested $27,000 of PLDO funds to install fencing, sod and seed for the park’s natural-designed amphitheater — a spot he said was used by the Ramona Kiwanis Club in the 1970s for music and special events.
PLDO funds come from a fee that is paid when the county issues building permits in Ramona. The money goes toward active recreational use projects for the community. Projects must be reviewed and approved by county Parks and Recreation, which then submits them to the county Board of Supervisors for release of the funds.
After the county’s initial review of the amphitheater project, Cooper said staff determined the cost would likely exceed $500,000 “with county emphasis on a near Hollywood Bowl-type project.”
In spring 2014, the project was re-created and titled Wellfield Park Active Recreational Park with estimated costs of $157,000 to cover perimeter fencing to prevent access from motorized vehicles, a children’s playground, horseshoe pits and a nine-hole disk golf course, he said.
The re-created project was under county review until fall 2015, at which time a 2009 biological study was submitted, according to Cooper.
He said “all of a sudden this study was received by one of the county offices. That threw a wrench in ... all the efforts of the Active Recreational Park.”
In February county staff and biologists walked the site and confirmed the existence of Southern scrub oak, an endangered plant, and non-native grasses.
Instead of needing a minor deviation to the major use permit held by the Ramona Municipal Water District, owner of the park, Cooper said the county told them in May that the project would need its own major use permit. That would lead to multiple studies and cause the cost to explode to over half-a-million dollars, he said.
Planning group members unanimously agreed to remove the project from the PLDO priority list.
According to the county, Parks and Recreation was not aware of the 2009 biological study until it was submitted by the Ramona water district in 2015. Jim Robinson, who was president of the water board in 2009, told the Sentinel that he remembers the county requiring the study for a Wellfield Park project, possibly a sports field, and would not release PLDO money without it.
In other park-related business, Dan Scherer, chair of the group’s Parks and Recreation Subcommittee, said four subcommittee members have not attended the last three monthly meetings so he has not had a quorum. The subcommittee has been trying to revise language in the county’s PLDO ordinance as the county is updating the ordinance and seeking feedback.
Planning group chair Jim Piva said subcommittee members can be removed if they miss three consecutive meetings, but will have opportunity to reapply. The board agreed to remove the four members. Now serving on the subcommittee are Scherer, Cooper and Dawn Perfect.