Council: Let them play

Dozens of Costa Mesa residents decried a proposal that would have banned team sports in 28 out of 30 city parks Tuesday night, and the City Council struck it down unanimously.

The ordinance would have made it illegal for groups of nine or more to play games in parks like Wakeham, Wimbledon, Estancia and others with large, flat grass fields.

City staff drew up the plan at the request of the City Council in response to complaints that park sports were dangerous to other park users and created unwanted noise and dirt.

Councilwomen Linda Dixon and Katrina Foley came out strongest against the proposal. Dixon has fought against the notion of passive parks for years; she voted to keep the city from installing boulders in Paularino to prevent sports in 2007, but she was overruled by council members Eric Bever and Wendy Leece.

“I would hope this whole thing is shredded,” Dixon said of the report by the Parks and Recreation Commission.

Public Works Director Peter Naghavi estimated that more than 100 hours of staff time had been spent considering the issue, despite his receiving only few complaints.

Parks and recreation staff had to tour each park, community meetings were held, and passive park issues were considered on multiple occasions by the City Council and the Parks and Recreation Commission.

“I see this report as a colossal waste of taxpayer money and time,” Foley said.

Mayor Pro Tem Allan Mansoor wanted to take the item off Tuesday’s agenda and move it back so he could have time to look at each of the parks in question. He and Bever said team sports played regularly in some parks like Vista and Canyon caused problems for neighbors and other park users.

“I’m not sure the blanket recommendation is necessary,” Mansoor said. “I’d like more time to look at [some of the parks].”

Foley said his request for a continuance “reeks of an attempt to prevent public input on the item,” given the large number who turned out.

Each neighborhood should be able to decide whether the local park should be forbidden to team athletics, according to Mansoor, Bever and Leece.

“I don’t think we need to look at restricting uses in all the parks if we’re not getting complaints in all the parks,” Bever said.

Jim Blackie, who helps run a physical education program for home-schooled children, uses Wakeham Park’s large open grass expanse to teach kids sports and let them exercise. On Mondays and Thursdays, he gathers a large group of children who divide into groups and play games that would be banned if the council had passed the ordinance.

“Wakeham is on the hit list of passive parks, which would make the home-school P.E. program completely impossible,” Blackie said.

Resident Bruce Krochman said he frequently took Boy Scouts out to play capture the flag or have squirt gun fights in a lot of the parks labeled “passive” under the proposal.

Mike Berry was one of few residents to speak in favor proposed park designations. He said he was flabbergasted that the council would consider voting against it and that the amount of complaints about people’s playing sports in the park were greatly understated.