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Nick Streit Tries To Keep Focus On City Parks And Playfields Issues
Terms end this month for four parks commissioners
Hub likely to re-emerge
By Steve Enders
For some reason, October and change seem to go hand in hand. The seasons, the weather and even the stock market all predictably succumb to some sort of radical change each fall.
This year, Saratoga's parks infrastructure, from commissioners to playground equipment, is probably going to see some big changes as well, and it's all going to start in October.
This month, terms are up for four Parks and Recreation commissioners,' Elaine Clabeaux, Frank Friedrich, Marianne Swan and Kay Whitney.
Before they leave their seats, however, they'll have met once on Oct. 4. New commissioners will be sworn in and are scheduled to meet at a joint meeting with the City Council on Oct. 26.
Almost undoubtedly, the joint meeting will force the two groups to start kicking the ball around again over what to do with the city's damaged playfields.
The topic was hot for a while, but was stifled by groups of neighborhood activists earlier this year. Council members, scrambling for a solution, then jumped on the city "hub" idea and went looking for a place to put the hub, which would, theoretically at least, include a large number of soccer and baseball fields for the city's youth to play on.
City staffers found a few possible sites around the city, but that was in July. Since then, not a referee's whistle has been heard over the contentious subject.
Leave it to Councilman Nick Streit to start stirring things up again.
The rejuvenator of the hub concept, Streit says he's ready to make a run at placing field and parks discussions back on the front burner and getting the situation fixed, if for no other reason than because something needs to be done about the city's parks, never mind the playfields.
He said almost everything needs repair, from bleachers at Congress Springs to park benches to bathrooms.
Besides, the city has about $1 million to spend on park gear, and another $1.5 million for fields.
Streit said he was sparked again recently while attending a soccer game at Congress Springs Park, where the city has already acknowledged that the heavily used fields need to be renovated. Streit said he strolled into the park's bathroom with one of his children, who refused to use it because of its disrepair.
"I'm trying to focus on the concept to try and bring the level of all the parks up to a level that Saratogans deserve," he said, noting the changes that are slated for a few city parks' bathrooms and play equipment already.
Kevin Moran and Gardiner parks are scheduled to get playground overhauls, and the bathrooms at Wildwood Park are awaiting renovation as well. An informational meeting on the equipment under consideration for Kevin Moran and Gardiner parks will take place in the Community Center on Oct. 7.
"Our staff is still doing maintenance with the budgets they were given when we had to make cuts," he said. "Since previous city councils had to make budget cuts, they trimmed a lot from the parks. Now, we've got some capital to bring the parks back up to a better standard."
As for the fields, Streit is ready to do what it takes at Congress Springs. The field there is so compacted that water can't percolate into the soil in some spots. If the field is going to be used, he said, it needs to be fixed.
Behind the scenes, Streit has approached the Azule Park Neighborhood Association--APNA was partly responsible for derailing the playfields issue last spring--with a compromise proposal. Would they accept a much-desired small neighborhood park on the undeveloped swatch of land between the Highway 85 sound wall and Blue Hills Elementary School in exchange for increased use of the field at Blue Hills to lighten the Congress Springs load? The group has been asking the city for an intimate park there for some time.
Streit's proposal would allow some teams who practice during the week at Congress Springs to play at Blue Hills for just enough time to permit the Congress Springs field to be fixed.
Reaction, predictably, has been mixed because it would increase use of the school's field, which is something the neighbors there have been trying to avoid all along.
"Basically I'm saying, 'If everyone wants to get back on track with this, what do we have to do?' We've got a $1 million budget," Streit said. "We can't just do the turf and have the backstops falling down."
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Saratoga, California Since 1955
